CHAPTER XLHusband and Wife
The next morning found Frederick Graves more nervous than ever. The weather had cleared. The air, washed by yesterday's downpour, came through the open window sweet to his nostrils. The countryside sparkled in the morning sun and the greens of the woods and fields were deeper and richer; but the beauty of the landscape touched him not. He'd scarcely slept, and when weariness had at last overcome him, his dreams had been filled with visions of a red haired girl, and a sturdy, handsome boy playing about upon the ragged rocks. When he came down to breakfast, Ebenezer told him he'd better see the doctor that day.
"You might go while Madelene and I are out this morning," suggested Helen. "Ah," hearing a child's voice in the hall, "here comes my baby!"
When the door opened, a little girl of three bounded in. Ebenezer held out his arms and Elsie sprang into them.
"Listen to Mrs. Waldstricker," he laughed. "She said, 'my baby,' and I say, she's mine.... Aren't you my baby, pet?"
Helen smiled indulgently. This wee bit of femininity was the one creature who could keep her father amiable from one end of the day to the other.
"My girlie wants to eat with daddy?" Ebenezer went on, his face buried in the flaxen hair. "Then she shall."
"Elsie wants to eat with daddy," parroted the child.
"That's why I say she's spoiled," offered Helen, shrugging her shoulders. "Now her place is in the nursery, but what can I do?"
"Her place is right here on her father's knee," replied Waldstricker, "where I always want her, bless her."
During the discussion about the child, Frederick got up from the table and went out of doors.
As he left the dining room, he had no definite plan; but no sooner had he walked across the front lawn and taken a view of the long road—the way that led to Tessibel and his boy—than his feet, seemingly of their own volition, led him along the grassy path up the hill. If he could only see the two of them without his family knowing! One kiss from his boy, one loving look from Tess, and he felt he could start again to live!
To the sick man the distance was considerable, but minute by minute he grew stronger, restored by revivifying hope. An hour, only a short hour, only a little distance further and he would be at the lake; in sight of the willow trees around the shack. He went down the hill to the top of the lane. Here Tess had come to him that long ago night he'd married her. Every familiar spot stung him with bitter memories of the squatter girl.
He went slowly down and stopped under a great tree opposite the house where he'd formerly lived. Young had the place now, and Tess lived there and his boy. Ebenezer's insinuations hurt him. His jealousy of Deforrest revived. Remorse for his criminal selfishness burned him, an unquenchable fire.
Shaken by conflicting emotions, he went on by the deserted hut under the willows to the lake shore. He'd go out to the ragged rocks and rest, and then he'd try to see Tessibel and the boy.
He came to the great gray slab where he'd left Tess the night he told her of Madelene, and sank down in the shade of the overhanging rocks. Screened from the blazing sun, his hot skin rejoiced in the coolness of the damp grotto. With unseeing eyes, he glanced out over the glassy mirror of the placid water. Unheeding, he heard none of the bird-calls, and paid no attention to the intimate little sounds of the lake side.
What should he do when at last he saw Tess and the boy? Would he dare claim them?
Suddenly, something made him sit up straight and listen. It was a child's laugh. He got up and stepped behind the hanging shoulder of the rock and waited.He looked cautiously around the jutting-rock, and there, racing toward him through the brilliant sunshine, was a little boy, a handsome, sturdy boy, and bounding along beside him, Kennedy's bulldog.
Then, instinctively, Frederick knew this was his son. He would speak, he must speak! He stepped from his hiding place and came face to face with the little fellow and his companion. The dog, uttering a great growl, crouched on his hind quarters in rage. A stranger had ventured upon ground belonging to his dear ones, and Pete was demanding, in his doglike way, the reason thereof.
"Pete, Pete," called Frederick, soothingly, and Pete dropped his head and came forward, as if to a friend. The boy stood, feet wide-spread, staring fixedly at this man whom Pete knew and he had never seen before.
Frederick patted the dog and smiled ingratiatingly at the boy. He was looking down into a pair of dark eyes, eyes like his own, into the grave face of a child asking why he was there.
The dog nuzzled the man's hand and fawned upon him, making in his throat little noises of welcome.
Frederick held out his other hand.
"Won't you come, too, little boy?"
"I can't!... Mummy wouldn't like it. I don't know you."
"She won't mind, I'm sure," replied Frederick, his heart beating so hard he could hear it. "Pete knows me, and I know your mother. Her name is—is Tessibel.... Isn't it?"
The man could scarcely get that beloved name from between his lips.
"Yes, Tessibel is my mummy," said the boy. "You know my mummy, and my Uncle Forrie?"
"Yes," assented Frederick, sitting down. "Come here and let me tell you all about your mother's beautiful curls."
Boy hitched nearer the tall stranger. He was drawn in some unknown way toward this man whose arms were out-held to him. Then, suddenly, he walked straight into them, his eyes still very grave, still very questioning.
The moment Frederick touched the little one he felt the world was his. He forgot Waldstricker, forgot Madelene, forgot everything, but his elf-like son within his cuddling grasp. He touched his lips to the little face.
"Oh, I've wanted to see you so," he murmured.
"Why didn't you come, then?" demanded Boy.
"I was away," said Frederick.
"My Uncle Forrie goes away, too. When he came home yesterday, he brought me a beautiful engine—it goes on wheels. I love my Uncle Forrie."
"Could you love me, dear?" breathed Frederick.
"Yes, oh, yes. I love everybody. God, too. So does Mummy. And Deacon, he's my owl, and An—"
Boy's lips closed on the nearly spoken word. He suddenly remembered the daily lessons he'd had from his mother never to mention Andy's name to any one; that, if he did, a big man would come and take his darling Andy away. No, Boy couldn't stand that. He wouldn't say anything about Andy, not even to this strangely attractive man.
"What were you going to say, boy?" petitioned Frederick.
"Nothin'. Just nothin'."
And the father was satisfied, satisfied not to talk, glad to have his son so heavenly close. The long years of his exile were slipping away. The nerve-racking yearning of tedious days and yet more tedious, sleepless nights was partially quieted. His son, so long, merely, the pulseless image of his dreams, had become a breathing reality, and the child was the living link between its mother and himself. The longer he held the little one, the more intense grew his desire for Tess. At length this demand urged him to ask,
"Where's your mother?"
"She's home, just up there in that house. She's working."
"You haven't any father?" the man queried at last. A lump rose in his throat and choked him. What had the child been told about him, he wondered.
"Oh, yes, I have somewhere's, but I got another up in the sky, away back in the clouds, Mummy says.And he's awful glad when I'm good, and he cries like anything, when I'm bad. So I try to be good, and sometimes I'm gooder'n gold."
To hear a name from the child's lips, the name he had dreamed of, was the one thought filling his mind.
"Let me be your father?" he said, his voice breaking.
"Sure I will," he answered. "There's my mummy, now!"
Around the jutting rocks came Tess. The red curls hung about her shoulders like a vivid velvet mantle, just as Frederick always dreamed of them. But her figure, in her simple morning dress, was fuller and more womanly. Upon her face was an expression of serenity and peace. Ah! The woman was even more lovely than the girl he'd married, and to the love-hungry man, on the great, gray slab of rock, she was infinitely desirable.
"Mummy," shouted the child, joyfully, "I've found a daddy for us. Petey and me found him."
Tess stared at the man, undisguised horror and dismay written in her eyes. She'd not seen Frederick since that day he'd urged her to marry Sandy Letts to escape Waldstricker, whose hands, he'd described, as stronger'n God's. She'd hardly heard of him after he and Madelene had gone West. She had long ago ceased to feel any desire for him. Indeed, she scarcely thought of him. During the full happy years since she left the shanty, under the loving tuition of Deforrest Young, the disgrace this man on the rocks had heaped upon her had covered its claws and lacerated her no more. But, at the sight of him, visions of the past reared themselves in her imaginative mind. Memory, suddenly, flung all the cruelties of his treatment of her into a kaleidoscopic jumble, and meddlesome fear presented numerous suggestions of calamity. A moment she stood as if turned to stone.
"Come on, come," Boy cried, tugging at her dress.
Frederick struggled to his feet, and held out his arms.
"Tessibel, oh, my Tess, be kind," he supplicated.
But she'd taken the child's hand and without answering, was making her way swiftly backward to the rock-path.
CHAPTER XLITessibel's Discovery
Frederick stood for one tense minute watching Tessibel hurry over the rocks. Many times he had pictured this interview, ... even framed the sentences in which he would express his remorse and win her forgiveness. It had never occurred to his brooding thought that the years of absence which had increased his own ardor, might have lessened the squatter girl's regard for him. But the meeting wasn't working out as he'd planned. He'd been almost paralyzed at her coming, speechless except for the few halting words of entreaty. Now, it dawned upon him that she was going away without a word, that she was taking the child with her, and that he might never see either of them again.
"Tessibel," he called hoarsely. "Stop, or ... I'll tell Waldstricker."
His words brought Tess to a standstill. The threat filled her with fear, for well she knew the elder's power. Still keeping hold of Boy's hand, she retraced her steps.
"Why did you come here?" she asked, fear and distaste making her voice cold and hard.
"To see you and ... him." Frederick pointed to the child, who was now hiding behind his mother's skirts.
"Well, now you've seen us."
Frederick stared at the speaker, his lips pursed with surprise. Was this Tess Skinner, the squatter girl? The voice was hers, but its tones were resonant with contempt! Face and form he recognized, but not the new poise, the dignity of her motherhood. The brown eyes he remembered as lighted by love, now expressed unutterable abhorrence.
"Tess, dear Tess," he pleaded, "let me talk to you."
Tess stooped over the child, rearranged his little waist, and pushed back the curly hair.
"Boy go home now, and mother'll come directly."
She kissed the bewildered upturned face. The baby couldn't understand what was going on.... Mummy seemed sad, and the nice man, who was so white and sick looking, had spoken angrily to his beautiful mother.
"I'd rather stay wif you," he lisped.
"But Mummy asks Boy to go," said Tess, and to the dog, "Here, Petey, go home with Boy."
Placing his hand on the dog's collar, the child turned slowly and unwillingly toward the house. He'd taken but a few halting steps along the rocks before Frederick's voice rang out.
"Tess, Tessibel, let me hold him ... kiss him once more. Don't shake your head! Don't say no! I've wanted him so all these years. Oh, Tessibel!"
His pitiful pleading touched the listening girl. At last, face to face with the man whose cowardice and selfishness had brought her so much trouble, her one desire was to escape ... to run away. But he was begging for her to be kind, to allow him to hold her baby!... What right had he to kiss him?... To be sure, the child was his, too, but—but—
"Oh, No! No! I don't want you to!" she cried, protesting. "You can never be anything in his life. Why don't you let us alone?"
Frederick had walked very close to her side by this time, his white face twitching.
"I must kiss him once more," he persisted.
Tess turned to the loitering child. She could see that at a word of assent from her, Boy would rush into the outstretched arms Frederick held toward him. The mother, with a twist at her heart, recognized the tie which drew together this man and her son. A dreadful fear clutched her. Would Frederick do as he had threatened, hoping that he might thus come in contact with his son? Her mind flew to Deforrest Young.... He must never know the name of Boy's father. She could feel the blood coursing madly through her temples, and her head ached dully.
Nevertheless, she went back and took hold of the child's hand.
"You may kiss the gentleman ... good-bye," she said in a constrained voice.
"The pretty man was goin' to be my faver," said the child, pleadingly. "I want a daddy awful bad."
"Yes, yes, I know," Tess returned tremulously. "Now hurry, dear, and then run home."
Only too gladly did the child jump away and bound into his father's extended arms.
"Mummy says I has to go home," he whispered.
While the tall man silently caressed the dark curls of her boy, Tess of the Storm Country endured such pain as she'd never known before. The mutual attraction between the two, so differently related to her, seemed anomalous and impossible.
Frederick unwillingly allowed the child to slip to the rocks and after Tess'd started Boy and the dog on their homeward way, she stood before him, her lips quivering. She knew he, too, suffered, and she waited quietly as he dried his eyes and recovered his choking breath.
She was sorry he'd come. She'd hoped never to see him again. But, now, she must be assured that he would continue the deception in regard to the past. As anxious as she had once been to have him claim her as his own, to tell the world she belonged to him, she, now, wanted to keep silent.
"It was useless for you to come," she chided presently.
Frederick made an impetuous movement with his hand.
"Oh, no, it wasn't.... Won't you let me atone, let me make up for all the things I've done ... and haven't done? I want—oh, how I want—"
"It's too late," interrupted the girl. "Much too late."
"But, Tessibel, I know you love me. You can't have forgotten. And I'll make the boy love me. He does now! Didn't you hear him call me father?"
"He has no father," she responded coldly. "And I—I haven't any love left for you."
The words were low but distinctly spoken.
"I don't believe it!... I won't!... You shall love me!... I won't have you with Young.... He can see my boy every day ... be with you hour after hour.... I hate him!"
"You hate him!" Tessibel's eyes burned and flashed with indignation. "When you should be grateful, because he's done everything you should've done.... You've said all you can. You can't make up to us ... the baby and me.... Won't you please go?"
Frederick felt he was losing his reason. The love he'd nursed in secret, the passion that had wasted him away, shook his frail frame. He wouldn't be denied!
"God help me, I won't go!" he gritted, the words carrying on his thought.
With one sweep of his arms, he encircled Tess in a close embrace. She made frantic efforts to free herself, but Frederick, strong under the emotion consuming him, only hugged her closer.
"Let me go!" Tess almost screamed the words. Then, her voice changed to a tense whisper, hoarse with loathing. "How can ... oh, how dare you!"
But she could not protect her face from the searching mouth. Violently, Frederick twisted her around and for one moment his lips fell upon hers. Deep groans came between the kisses he thrust upon her.
A moment later the sound of advancing steps lifted Frederick's face from hers. Muttering an oath, he threw Tess forcibly from him, for there in the path was Ebenezer Waldstricker, about whose sagging lips played a supercilious smile.
"So I was not mistaken," he sneered, looking his brother-in-law full in the face. "If Madelene doesn't care, I do."
"Well?" growled Frederick. "You've found me here, now do what you cursed want to, I don't care."
"Perhaps you'll care before I finish," said the elder grimly, and he included the girl in his baleful glare. "I think you both will."
Tessibel's mind flew to Boy. What could these two men do to her darling?
She went forward toward Waldstricker, her eyes raised appealingly to his.
"Won't you make Mr.... Mr. Graves keep away?" she petitioned. "I don't want him here."
"Yes, it looked, when I came around the corner, as if you didn't want him, miss," scoffed the elder. Then he laughed, and the laugh cut the throbbing girl to the quick. "Very much as if you wanted him to go.... Now, then, sir, what's this girl to you?"
"I'm nothing to him, Mr. Waldstricker," she asserted, without giving Frederick a chance to speak.
Graves still felt that maddening passion, that demand for his own.
"She lies," he said in low tones.
Tess turned to him passionately.
"You know what I say is true. You came here without my desiring it! I don't want anything to do with you.... Haven't you both harmed me enough?... Do I ever come around and hurt you?... Why don't you tell the truth?"
"All right," he shouted, his irritation at her resistance overcoming his fear of the elder. "If you want the truth, here it is. I'm——"
"Don't! Don't!" screamed Tess.
"Ah!" hissed Waldstricker's lips like a jet of steam.
He'd caught within his powerful net the girl he wanted. He'd bring to light the secret that'd preyed upon his sister's spirits so long. For the squatter girl he felt no pity, for Frederick only contempt. They were both weaklings that he'd sweep away in his pursuit of Young and the squatters.
"He's sick," said Tessibel, trying to discount Frederick's confession. "Your brother-in-law's sick. You can see that!... He thinks ... why, he's mad!"
"I'm not mad!" Frederick turned upon her fiercely, then back to the big man whose eagerness bent him forward. "I'm the father of her boy."
The blood left Waldstricker's face, so that it looked like carved marble.
"So 'tis so," he got out, "and you admit it, you cur, and you dared to marry my sister? Now, as God lets me live, you'll both suffer for this, and as for you, Tessibel Skinner, look out for that bastard of yours!"
The squatter girl uttered a heart-broken cry, and turning, fled around the rocks into the lane and up the hill.
CHAPTER XLIIA Man's Arm at the Window
It seemed to Tess that her feet were leaden, as if she could never traverse the distance between the ragged rocks and the house. The interview with Frederick had been a terrible ordeal, and she was sick with disgust from his odious kisses. Waldstricker's untimely appearance and his stinging taunts hurt and frightened her. She knew he would do his worst and that Frederick wouldn't or couldn't help it. The desire to get Boy into her arms, to keep him from the men below urged her on. Wildly, she fled through the orchard, crying as she went.
"Boy! Mummy's Boy! Where's Mummy's Boy?"
Gasping for breath, her voice ejected the words explosively. Exhausted, she sank upon the top step of the porch. The long run up the hill had been almost too much, but in a moment, she lifted herself, still calling and panting, and stumbled into the house.
"He's upstairs with Andy," said Young, looking up from his book. Then, alarmed by her appearance, he jumped up and hurried to her. "What's the matter, Tess? Tell me."
"Where's the baby?" she demanded hysterically, clinging to him.... "Tell me where my baby is."
Drawing her into an easy chair, Deforrest attempted to quiet her.
"Boy's upstairs with Andy. Hush, hush, child! Don't cry like that!... Oh, my little girl!... What is it?... What's happened? Tell me ... quick!"
But Tess couldn't speak. She only clung to his arms, trying to stifle her gasping cries.
Just then Boy's clear laugh came pealing down the stairway, a conclusive comfort to his mother's heart. When her extreme agitation had subsided. ProfessorYoung sat down and called her to him. As of old, when first he had heard her lessons in his home, she dropped at his feet, resting her curly head against his knee.
"Now I want to know what's frightened you," said he, softly.
The girl made a gesture of refusal. "I can't tell it," she replied, under her breath. "It's too terrible! It's too awful!"
"There's nothing too terrible for me to know," answered Young. "What happened while you were out?"
"Don't ask me to tell you, Uncle Forrie," pleaded Tess. "I can't! I can't!"
"Tessibel," demanded the lawyer, "was it Sandy Letts?"
"Oh, no, no, not him!"
The man pondered a moment.
"Was it—"
"Please don't ask me any more questions." She lifted a crimson face. "I was foolish, I suppose, but I thought, I thought the baby—"
"Some one threatened Boy! Was that it, Tessibel?" he cross-questioned.
"Yes." The murmured answer was scarcely audible.
"One of the squatters, then?"
The red head sank again. This time a decided shake of the shining curls made the denial.
Hoping to avoid further examination, the girl tried to rise to her feet, but the questioner's hand pressed her back.
"Don't ask me," she entreated. "I'm better now."
She tried to smile, but the sweet lips trembled. Young hadn't seen her so stirred in all the years of her residence in his house. He'd been able to hold his love in check while he saw her happy and content, but her present pitiful state broke down the barriers he'd erected and hardly conscious of the change in his attitude, he kissed her.
Tess drew away sharply. The strange new quality in his caress aroused an answering thrill the length of her body. In that moment she discovered how deeply she loved Deforrest Young.
"Don't ... don't kiss me! Never, never kiss me again."
What was it she had said? The man felt his heart contract with a shooting pain.
"Why, child, I've kissed you since you were a little girl.... Why shouldn't I?"
"I don't know, I don't know," she faltered. "Somehow it's different, now."
Something in her tones, some dejection in the bowed head brought the man's hand from the shrouding curls. His heart began to live again, to come forth from beneath his stern will and make known its own desire.
"Tess," his voice tense with emotion, "will you marry me?... Will you, Tess?"
The girl got to her feet, swaying. Marry him? Her fingers twisted together as her eyes dropped before the expression of his. He, too, was on his feet, holding out his arms.
"I'd ... marry you," she confessed haltingly, "but I can't."
"Is it Boy?" demanded Young. "Why, child, don't you know I love him almost as if he were my own?"
"I can't," wailed Tess, again. "How I wish I could!"
"You saw some one today, didn't you, Tessibel?"
She nodded affirmatively, but volunteered nothing further.
"I must know," cried the man. "Don't you see, child, you've just told me—Tess, look at me."
The drooping lids raised slowly.
"Tess, when you said you desired to marry me, did you mean—oh, you meant you love me, child dear, didn't you?"
"Yes," she breathed.
"Then, can't you see your love for me and mine for you makes it necessary I should know everything? Some one today—tell me, dear."
"Waldstricker came down—" Tess paused, but trembled on. "I was talking to—"
"Who?" ejaculated Young, fiercely. "Who?"
"The baby's father."
Shocked by her unexpected answer, he dropped into his chair and covered his face with his hands.
"Don't feel that way," she whispered. "Listen, I'll tell you about it.... Boy ran to the rocks with Pete, and I went after him. I found him there with—with—"
"Oh, Tess," groaned Young.
"His father's been away a long time," the girl went on, "and now he's back, and he wanted to see the baby, and then I sent Boy home and Waldstricker came—"
"My God! won't you ever tell me who was there with you?"
Boy's mother bowed her head, and through the red hair came two trembling words, just one whispered name that seared the man's heart like flames.
"Frederick Graves."
Only one long shudder showed the listener's agony. Tess, too, remained quiet, her veins bursting with pulsing blood. She could not tell him the rest, Frederick hadn't told, neither could she. Her promise on the rocks, so many years ago, still bound her.
The lawyer lowered his hands, and the whiteness of his face drew Tessibel to her knees beside him.
"I've always made you sad," she murmured. "I'm sorry, forgive me."
"Just tell me ... all," he insisted.
Then she began at the beginning and told him over again how Boy had gone to the rocks with Pete and she went after him. At the part where Frederick had taken her in his arms, she faltered. In the light of the wonderful, new love for Deforrest, she couldn't go on!
"Won't you let me ... keep the rest?" she implored.
"No, I will not!" groaned the man. "I will not!"
"Then, let me stand up."
She got up slowly and stood looking out of the window.
"He kissed and kissed me," she said, choking, "and just then Waldstricker came and ... saw."
"Oh, God help me!" the heavy voice pleaded.
Tess knelt again. His supplicating cry aroused herfaith to vivid activity. Deforrest had prayed, "God help me!" and, oh, so differently than the same words used by Frederick a short time previous. He was bearing pain for her. Hadn't she suffered, too, and time and again called into the heart of the Infinite for help? And always at the times needed, it had come. God would surely help her friend. Tess forgot herself in her ardent desire to comfort him.
"He will help you, dear," she whispered. "He'll always help when you ask Him. Didn't He get Daddy Skinner out of Auburn and He kept Andy with me in the shanty till we came to you? Oh, I know He'll help you and me, Uncle Forrie."
The loving appellation, taught Boy when first he could lisp, roused the man as perhaps nothing else would have done. The three of them still needed him, needed him more than ever. He was there at their sides like a wall of stone, to defend, to love and protect. And whatever happened, Tess loved him!
He drew her to her feet and smiled a twisted smile into the lovely face. This day had started another epoch in their lives. She had said God would help, and he had learned many lessons from the squatter girl. For the first time in his life he understood something of the overwhelming faith of Tessibel Skinner. Yes, he would be helped!
The girl's next words cut off his thought.
"Waldstricker said he'd hurt Boy," she said, flushing, "but, but—"
"But you have faith he can't, haven't you, Tess?"
"Of course!" she nodded. "I know he can't! You remember the day Waldstricker tried to get me and you came and stopped him, how I told you I knew he couldn't," and more softly, "do you remember what I said when you went away that day?"
"Yes, indeed, I do, dear! I've often thought of it. 'Love is everywhere, the hull time,'" and, he smiled.
Radiantly she told him, "And, now, somehow, I know that Love will let me be all yours some day."
Young turned swiftly, and going to the door, swung out without another word, and Tess hurried upstairs to Boy.
CHAPTER XLIIISandy's Job
Tessibel Skinner's flight left Ebenezer Waldstricker and Graves together on the ragged rocks. The bigger man turned and surveyed the other, scorn, anger and disgust struggling for expression in his face. The latter, paying no apparent attention to the enraged elder, leaned against an outcropping gray rock and fixed his gaze on the lake, noting mechanically the play of sunshine and shadow upon its dazzling bosom.
Through the elder's seething mind thoughts tumbled tumultuously. Could this moody, pale-faced man be the same nice young fellow that had married Madelene? How had he dared to marry her, and having done so, what had compelled him, after all this time, to acknowledge the Skinner brat?
He walked forward a step or two, coughed and began to speak. Frederick seemed not to hear him.
"I said," repeated Waldstricker, "I've discovered what I've suspected for four years."
Frederick allowed his eyes to rest an instant on his brother-in-law's dark, passionate face. Then, again, he turned his attention to the lake.
"And I don't intend to allow my sister to suffer by this," went on the elder.
"I suppose you'll tell her, won't you?" questioned the other, foreseeing unpleasant complications and already regretting the rashness that'd betrayed him.
"She won't learn it from me," promised Ebenezer.
"Nor from me," agreed Frederick. "I've no wish to have a whining woman hanging to my neck."
Waldstricker muttered an oath under his breath.
"Well, of all the contemptible pups in the world!" he snorted. "Talk of ingratitude! Here's a girl, a good girl, too, and Madelene's that—"
"No one said she wasn't," snapped Graves. "But her goodness doesn't keep her from nagging, my dear Ebenezer."
"Shut up!" snarled his opponent, the last atom of his patience exhausted by the speaker's flippant criticism. "You cur, you deserve a good thrashing, and I'm going to give it to you, now!"
Jumping for him, he lifted his arm to strike, but before the mighty fist descended, Frederick, outworn by his long walk and the excitement of the morning, slumped upon the rocks, a limp form at his assailant's feet. Stunned, the tall man gazed down at the crumpled figure, and mechanically lowered his arm. Then, he stooped, examined his fallen foe and stretched him out upon the rocks. Leaving him there, Waldstricker hurried to the lake and filled his hat with water, and returning, bathed the stricken man's face and neck. In a few moments, the faintness passed, and Frederick drew himself to a sitting posture against the rocks.
"You great brute! It's like you to strike a sick man," the white lips taunted, as soon as their owner could speak.
The slurring words brought a hot blush of shame to Ebenezer's face.
"I'm sorry, Fred," he stammered at length. "I was so angry I must've forgotten you're not well. I'm glad I didn't strike you. But what are we going to do, now?... If we don't tell Madelene, how about the Skinner girl?... Won't she make trouble for us?"
"No, she won't say anything, I'm sure!" Frederick's voice was low, but positive. "She doesn't want to have anything more to do with me. What she said about not wanting me was true. She wouldn't stop to speak to me, even, until I threatened to tell you.... I suppose Young's made her so happy she's glad to forget me."
"What gets me is how you and Young, decent fellows, got mixed up with such a girl," Ebenezer growled meditatively.
"If you knew Tess as I do, ... you'd understand," wailed Frederick. "She's the dearest, bravest, sweetest girl in the world."
"Bosh!... Now, the question is about getting you home. My buggy's up in the road. Do you think you can walk there?"
"I guess so."
With his brother-in-law's help, Frederick got to his feet. Slowly, leaning on the big man's supporting arm, he made his way, with many pauses for rest, to the waiting vehicle.
Waldstricker put his companion into the carriage and unhitched the horse. Instead of getting in beside him, he handed him the reins, saying as he did so,
"You can drive all right, can't you? Old Ned knows the way back and will go home if you let him alone. I want to see Young."
Before turning away, the speaker chirruped to the horse, which started obediently up the hill toward Ithaca, drawing after him what cowardly selfishness had left of Frederick Graves.
The elder walked slowly up the path to Young's house, turning over in his mind to what advantage he could best use his newly acquired knowledge.
Coming out of the door hurriedly, Deforrest Young met his brother-in-law face to face as the latter rounded the corner of the house. At the sight of this pompous person, whose meddling threatened so much trouble to his dear ones, the indignation which Tessibel's words had in a measure quieted, flared up anew. He wanted to fight, to pound, and if possible to kill with his hands the man in front of him.
"You'd better come no farther," he said between set teeth. "Just stay where you are!... I shan't be responsible for my acts if you don't."
"So she's told you," said Waldstricker, laughing loudly. "And it hurts, eh? Now, you know what you're keeping?"
Trembling with suppressed passion, the lawyer walked deliberately to the steps, his face waxen-white.
"I told you to come no nearer. I'd advise you to go away," said he. His low voice, contrasting sharply with his flushed cheeks and blazing eyes, testified eloquently of the tremendous curb imposed upon his temper.
"Yes, she told me, ..." he continued in the same tone, "and the more she told me, the more heartily I pitied her. She told me of your threats, too, but I want you to understand, the moment you turn your hands against her, I'll fix you."
"Don't forget my wife's your sister. I'll see our family's honor upheld even if you've forgotten it." Waldstricker simulated a confidence he didn't quite feel.
Young's fists knotted.
"You mind your business, Ebenezer, and let my house alone."
Waldstricker, kicking uneasily at a stone in his path, thought a moment. At last he looked up.
"I'll let your house alone all right, if you'll get rid of that girl, and that—"
He didn't use the word he'd intended. Deforrest didn't give him time.
"My house is my own," he interjected. "If you watch yours, you'll have all you can 'tend to."
"I'll go," said the big man, hoarsely, "but I don't say I won't come again, and I warn you, as I warned that squatter girl, when the time comes—"
"Get out!" snarled Deforrest, starting down the steps, "and get quick."
And the elder, not daring to stay, turned and went toward the pear orchard. It was then, that he glanced up and saw Tessibel and her little one at an upper window, watching with startled eyes for his departure. The baby turned from the window and raised his arms to some one within, and a hand below a man's rough coat sleeve clasped the boy and lifted him up out of Waldstricker's sight.
Walking along the road to Ithaca, he reviewed the exciting events of the morning and tried to consider and determine the complications they involved. He was unable to find a motive for Frederick's dramatic announcement, although he did not for a moment doubt its truth. It was queer though that, after having kept still so long, he should blurt out his secret in that fashion. He considered his promise not to tell Madelene and concluded he'd been wise. Probably Frederickwouldn't live long anyway, and in the natural course of things, Madelene would soon be free and the Graves chapter ended. He wondered what had kept Tess silent all these years. How had she withstood his persecution even in her betrayer's presence and made no sign? He was glad she had, but he couldn't understand why. Evidently the girl's disclosure to Young wasn't going to make any difference in his brother-in-law's conduct. Suddenly, like a bolt shot into the midst of his revery, rose the question. Whose arm was that? Young was on the porch, the girl and the baby in plain sight at the window. But there was some one else, a man. He had seen his arm and coat sleeve.
"That's certainly peculiar," he ruminated. "I didn't know Young had any one else there. It may be all right, of course, but it seems mighty suspicious."
All the way home and all the evening, the thing bothered him. In every way imaginable he tried to account for that other man in Young's house. He canvassed the neighborhood. A chance visitor wouldn't be upstairs, and anyhow he'd have looked out to see the row with Young. But this man kept away from the window. He'd only shown his hand and arm. Whoever he was, he was hiding in Young's home.
Was his brother-in-law a party to it? A man couldn't be kept for any length of time in the house without his knowing it. Young and Tess were hiding someone! At bed time he decided that the next day he would find out who was the other man in Young's house. It might give him a hold on his obstreperous brother-in-law and the hateful squatter girl.
CHAPTER XLIVSandy's Visit
The next day, Ebenezer Waldstricker met Lysander Letts, just back from Auburn, loitering along Buffalo Street near the Lehigh Valley station. The prison-pallor of the squatter's face and hands and the ill-fitting, cheap prison clothes on his big body made him conspicuous among the men on the street. Waldstricker pulled up his team.
"Sandy," he called, "come to the office when you're uptown. I want to see you."
An hour or so later, the squatter slouched into Waldstricker's private room.
The elder rose and greeted him.
"So you're out again?" The question was really a statement.
"Yes," assented Letts, sitting down on the edge of the chair, "an' I wouldn't a been if I hadn't been let out on good behavior. I made up my mind I wouldn't stay a minute longer'n I had to."
"I guess after this you won't be stealing dead bodies, will you?" asked the rich man.
"Nope, you bet I won't! I've enough of Auburn. It ain't like the Ithaca jail!... Heard anythin' of Tess Skinner?"
"Yes, she's got a boy over three years old."
Lysander nodded his head slowly, as if he'd received confirmation of a conclusion previously formed.
"Thought likely," he muttered. "Where air she livin'? I met Jake Brewer on the street an' he says she air left the shack."
"So she has, but not very far away.... Letts, I want you to do something for me. Are—or I might put it—do you still want to make up to the Skinner girl?"
Sandy's face grew dark with uncontrollable anger.
"I want to rip the skin offen her inch by inch," he snarled.
The other man gave a low, mirthless laugh. The picture of the girl he disliked so intensely, writhing in the great hands of the brute opposite him, appealed to the elder's sardonic humor.
"That wouldn't be a bad idea," he averred. "But she's got some one who won't see her hurt."
Letts jumped up and stepped close to the desk where the other was sitting. Here was a complication he hadn't anticipated. He moistened his dry lips with a tobacco stained tongue and demanded,
"Who air he?... Air she married?"
"No, she's living in Graves' old place, the house I, now, own, with Deforrest Young."
"Ye mean, your wife's brother, the lawyer?"
Waldstricker nodded.
"An' ye say she air livin' with him?"
"Well not exactly that, I suppose, but she's keeping house for him. She's got her child there, too."
"Has, eh?" said Sandy, dryly.
A wicked look came over his face and he slouched back into his chair. Ebenezer went to his office window and looked into the street.
"Want to earn some money, Letts?" he demanded, without turning around.
"You bet! Ye bet I do!"
Ebenezer returned to his desk and sat down again facing his visitor.
"You'll have to go about this business carefully."
"Trust me," promised the squatter.
"I am. There's a mystery about Young's house—I mean, there's some one in it beside my brother-in-law, the Skinner girl, and the boy."
"Who air it?" The question was no perfunctory expression of interest. Anything relating to Tess was vitally important.
"That's what I want you to find out. It's a man!"
"Mebbe it's the brat's pa," offered the other.
"No, it isn't, and by the way, you let up trying to find out about that."
"What do ye mean?" interjected Sandy, sullenly.
"I mean I want that matter dropped."
Letts merely grunted, for to acquire that information was one of the first things he intended to do, but there was no use telling the elder so.
"What ye want?" he muttered.
"I'll give you a hundred dollars to find out the name of the other man living at Young's."
"Done!" cried the squatter. "Do I get any of the dough, now?"
"Part of it, if you like," replied Waldstricker, slipping his hand into his pocket. "But listen to me. You're to come directly back here and tell me, when you find out. Discover his name, if you don't know the man. Do you understand?"
"I does that. You leave it to me. Then, I'll settle with Tess Skinner."
"As you please about her," consented Waldstricker. "Go along now. I'm busy."