Does Merit Suspend the Sotah Bitter Waters in Nasso

[(Numbers 5:12:) "If any man's wife goes astray."] If she has merit, it suspends [the effect of the bitter water] for her a year or two. Rabbi Shimon says: Merit does not [suspend] the [bitter] water, for if you say so, you turn out to weaken [the deterrent for] all the women who drink, and to spread slander about the pure women who drank, saying that they were defiled, only that merit suspended [the effect] for them. Rabbi Meir says: Merit always suspends [the effect of] the bitter water; but if she was defiled, she will never again bear children and thrive, but she goes on degenerating, and in the end she dies that same death.