Part 41 (2/2)

Williams stepped quickly to her side, exclaiming delightedly, ”Rita, Rita, is it really true at last?”

He attempted to kiss her, but she held up her hand warningly.

”No,” she said, ”not till I am your wife. Then I must submit. Till then I belong to myself.”

”I have waited a long time,” answered this patient suitor, ”and I can wait a little longer. When shall we be married?”

”Fix the time yourself,” she replied.

”I am to leave Christmas morning by the Napoleon stage for home, and if you wish we may be married Christmas Eve. That will give you four days for preparation.”

”As you wish,” was the response.

”I know, Rita, you do not love me,” said Williams, tenderly.

”You surely do,” she interrupted.

”But I also know,” he continued, ”that I can win your love when you are my wife. I know it, or I would not ask you to marry me. I would not accept your hand if I were not sure that I would soon possess your heart. I will be so loving and tender and your life will be so perfect--so different from anything you have ever known--that you will soon be glad you gave yourself to me. It will not be long, Rita, not long.”

”Perhaps you are right,” she answered with her lips; but in her heart this girl, who was all tenderness and love, prayed G.o.d to strike him dead before Christmas Eve should come.

Williams again took his chair, but Rita said, ”I have given you my promise. I--I am--I fear I am ill. Please excuse me for the rest of the evening and--and leave me, I beg you.”

Williams took his leave, and Rita went into the sitting room, where father, mother, and Tom were waiting for the verdict.

”You are saved,” said Rita, as if she were announcing dinner.

”My daughter! my own dear child! G.o.d will bless you!” exclaimed the tender mother, hurrying to embrace the cause of her joy.

”Don't touch me!” said Rita. ”I--I--G.o.d help me! I--I fear--I--hate you.” She turned to the stairway and went to her own room. For hours she sat by the window, gazing into the street, but toward morning she lighted a candle and told Dic the whole piteous story in a dozen pages of anguish and love.

After receiving Sukey's letter, Dic left home for a few days to engage horses to take east with him in the spring. He did not return until late in the afternoon of the day before Christmas.

On the morning of that day--the day before Christmas--Jasper Yates, Sukey's father, came to Billy Little's store in great agitation. Tom Bays had been there the day before and had imparted to Billy the news of Rita's forthcoming wedding. She had supposed that Dic would tell him and had not written; but Dic was away from home and had not received her letter.

I cannot describe to you the overpowering grief this announcement brought to the tender bachelor heart. It stunned him, crushed him, almost killed him; but he tried to bear up manfully under the weight of his grief. He tried, ah, so hard, not to show his suffering, and Maxwelton's braes, was sung all day and was played nearly all night; but the time had come to Billy when even music could not soothe him. There was a dry, hard anguish at his heart that all the music of heaven or of earth could not soften. Late in the night he shut his piano in disgust and sat before the fire during the long black hours without even the comfort of a tear.

When Tom imparted the intelligence of Rita's wedding, he also asked Billy for a loan of four hundred dollars. As an inducement, he explained that he had forged the name of Mr. Wallace to a note calling for that sum, and had negotiated the note at an Indianapolis bank. Rita's marriage would settle the Williams theft, but the matter of the forgery called for immediate adjustment in cash. Billy refused the loan; but he gave Tom fifty dollars and advised him to leave the state.

”If you don't go,” said Billy, savagely, ”you will be sent to the penitentiary. Rita can't marry every one you have stolen from. What did you do with the money you stole from me--Dic's money? Tell me, or I'll call an officer at once. I'll arrest you myself and commit you. I'm a justice of the peace. Now confess, you miserable thief.”

Tom turned pale, and, seeing that Billy was in dreadful earnest, began to cry: ”There was five of us in that job,” he whispered, ”and, Mr.

Little, I never got none of the money. Con Gagen and Mike Doles got it all. I give them the sacks to keep for a while after I left the store.

They promised to divide, but they run away soon afterwards, and of course we others were afeared to peach. I didn't know you knowed it. Con Gagen put me up to it.”

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