"Stay here, Rita. Don't go to the door." "But, mother--" "Stay here, I command you," and Rita did not go to the door. Dic met Mr. Bays at the gate, paused for a word of greeting, and plunged into the snow-covered forest, while the words "during the last four months" rang in his ears with a din that was almost maddening. "She might have told me," he muttered, speaking as if to the storm. "While I have been thinking of her every moment, she has been listening to him. But her letters were full of love. She surely loved me when I met her two hours ago. No woman could feign love so perfectly. She must love me. I can't believe otherwise. I will see her again to-night and she will explain all, I am sure. There is no deceit in her." His returning confidence eased, though it did not cure, his pain. It substituted another after a little time--suspense. It was not in his nature to brook suspense, and he determined again and again to see Rita that evening. But his suspense was ended without seeing Rita. When he reached home he found Sukey, blushing and dimpling, before the fire, talking to his mother. "Been over to see Rita?" she asked, parting her moist, red lips in a smile, showing a gleam of her little, white teeth, and dimpling exquisitely. "Yes," answered Dic, laconically. "Thought maybe you would stay for supper," she continued. "No," replied Dic. "Perhaps the other fellow was there," remarked Sukey, shrugging her plump shoulders and laughing softly. Dic did not reply, but drew a chair to the hearth. "Guess they're to be married soon," volunteered Sukey. "He has been coming Saturdays and staying over Sunday ever since you left. Guess he waited for you to get out of the way. I think he's so handsome. Met him one Sunday afternoon at the step-off. I went over to see Rita, and her mother said she had gone to take a walk with Mr. Williams in that direction after dinner. I knew they would be at the step-off; it's such a lonely place. He lives in Boston, and they say he's enormously rich." During the long pause that followed Dic found himself entirely relieved of suspense. There was certainty to his heart's content. He did not show his pain; and much to her joy Sukey concluded that Dic did not care anything about the relations between Williams and Rita. "Rita showed me the ring he gave her," continued Sukey. Dic winced, but controlled himself. It was his ring that Sukey had seen on Rita's finger, but Dic did not know that. "Some folks envy her," observed the dimpler, staring in revery at the fire. "She'll have a fine house, servants, and carriages"--Dic remembered having used those fatal words himself--"and will live in Boston; but for myself--well, I never intend to marry, but if I do I'll take one of the boys around here, or I'll die single. The boys here are plenty good enough for me."