"This is a terrible calamity I have brought upon us," said Dic, speaking with difficulty and constraint. "It is like blindness or madness, and means wretchedness for life to you and me." Still the unexpected direction, thought Rita, but she answered out of her firm resolve:-- "I shall not be wretched, for I do not--don't care. The time was when I did care very, very much; but now I--" She did not finish the sentence, and her conscience reproached her, for she knew she was uttering a big, black lie. Dic had expected scorn, and had thought he would be able to bear it without flinching. He had fortified himself days before by driving all hope out of his heart, but (as we say and feel when our dear ones die) he was not prepared, even though he well knew what was coming. Her words stunned him for a moment, but he soon pulled himself together, and his unselfish love brought a feeling akin to relief: a poor, dry sort of joy, because he had learned that she did not suffer the pain that was torturing him. No mean part of his pain was because of Rita's suffering. If she did not suffer, he could endure the penalty of his sin with greater fortitude. This slight relief came to him, not because his love was weak, but because his unselfishness was strong. "If I could really believe that you do not care," he said, struggling with a torturing lump in his throat, "if I could surely know that you do not suffer the pain I feel, I might endure it--God in heaven! I suppose I might endure it. But when I think that I have brought suffering to you, I am almost wild." The girl's hands were folded demurely upon her lap, and she was gazing down at them. She lifted her eyes for an instant, and there was an unwonted hardness in them as she answered: "You need not waste any sympathy on me. I don't want it." "Is it really true, Rita," he asked, "that you no longer care for me? Was your love a mere garment you could throw off at will?" He paused, but Rita making no reply, he continued: "It wounds my vanity to learn that I so greatly overestimated your love for me, and I can hardly believe that you speak the truth, but--but I hope--I almost hope you do. Every sense of honor I possess tells me I must accept the wages of my sin and marry Sukey Yates, even though--" Suddenly a change came over the scene. The girl who had been so passive and cold at once became active and very warm. She sprang to her feet, panting with excitement. Resolutions and righteous indignation were scattered to the four winds by the tremendous shock of his words. Sukey at last had stolen him. That thought seemed to be burning itself into the very heart of her consciousness. "You--you marry Sukey Yates!" she cried, breathing heavily and leaning toward Dic, one hand resting on the arm of his chair, "you _marry_ her?" The question was almost a wail. "But if you no longer care there can be no reason why I should not," said Dic, hardly knowing in the whirl of his surprise what he was saying.