ITS ANSWER
While Tessibel Skinner, lonely and despondent, was grieving in the
squatter country, Frederick Graves arrived in Paris with his young wife.
There had been for him but few hours since that last evening upon the
ragged rocks, during which Tessibel's face had not haunted him, the
brown eyes, sometimes smiling, more frequently shadowed with tears.
Impotent remorse possessed his days and filled his wakeful nights with
anguish. At such times when life seemed intolerable, the thought of the
comfort he had supplied for his mother and sister was balm to his
troubled soul.
He regretted, too, that he had not gone to the squatter settlement to
see Tess again before his marriage to Madelene. He had thought, then,
that the sight of her pleading pain would be more than he could bear. He
had already vowed to himself over and over with clenched teeth that he
would stay but a short time away from America. He must see Tess. He did
not worry over her keeping the secret of their clandestine marriage ...
he had implicit confidence in her promise.
Madelene's keen enjoyment in displaying the many sights, already
familiar to her, bored him to distraction, and they had been in France
but a few days before she discovered his indifference to the wonders
which seemed of such importance to her. On the way over she had noticed
his spells of abstraction. She had seen how quickly the shadows
descended upon her husband's face when it was in repose. With an
intuition characteristically feminine, she concluded rightly that
Frederick's interest was not in her, that his attention was really
concentrated upon something quite apart from his wife and their
honeymoon. She determined to find out the reason.
One morning, breakfasting in their charming room, Madelene started a
bright conversation, which Frederick met with but a chilly response.
"What's the matter with you, Fred?" she demanded curiously. "You haven't
spoken a pleasant word for two days."
A faint smile sketched itself about the corners of Frederick's lips.
"Aren't you stretching that a little, my dear?" he evaded
half-playfully.
"Well, perhaps a wee bit," laughed Madelene, ruefully. "But honestly,
dear, you look as if you'd lost your last friend instead of being on
your--honeymoon."
She sprang up, rounded the table and perched daintily on the arm of his
chair.
"I do want to make you happy, darling," she urged. "What's the trouble?"
Frederick made a slightly impatient gesture with one shoulder.
"I'm happy enough, Madelene! But it's this beastly weather! I suppose
that's the reason I feel so lackadaisical. If you don't mind, I don't
believe I'll go out today."
Madelene uttered a little cry of disappointment.
"Now, I _am_ vexed!" she pouted prettily.
"Oh, then I'll go with you, of course," Frederick hastily cut in. "It
doesn't make any difference to me."
The young wife felt an impulse to anger.
"But it ought to make a difference, Fred dear," she pointed out to him.
"Why, you make me feel so small ... so insignificant.... I don't want to
drag you about if you don't want to go."
Absorbed in his self-centered meditations his wife's sightseeing
excursions seemed to him a perfect nuisance.
"I didn't mean to hurt you, dear," he apologized hurriedly.
Madelene got up and went to the window and gazed down upon the street.
"I know what we'll do," she stated, dancing back to the table. "Let's go
to some quiet, cool place for a week or two. I hate Paris in the hot
weather, anyway. And it'll be fun to be by ourselves ... and we'll have
long walks.... Would you like that?"
The dark wave of blood surging into Frederick's temples made her look
curiously at him. Why should he be embarrassed at such a suggestion?
"As you please, my dear," he interrupted her thought.
Madelene sighed. He did look ill. It might be the hot weather, but he
had such a strange, detached manner most of the time ... as if he were
far away ... or she was. Her mind was busy with the problem. She could
not eat.
Frederick, too, was but toying with his breakfast. He was wondering just
what Madelene was planning to do in the country. It would be even harder
for him there than in the city. With Tessibel's face always between
them, he could not make a lover's love to her anywhere.
An hour or so later, while Frederick had gone to smoke under the trees,
his wife stood critically studying her reflection in the glass ... with
but few misgivings. She was pretty, surely so, and very rich! What more
could a man want? In the coolness of the country, Frederick would be
better. He would lose his moroseness and give his undivided attention to
her. She would make all the arrangements for the change without
disturbing him. He should not be bothered a little bit; and Madelene
grew quite happy again with the thought of having Frederick all to
herself in some romantic country spot.
She summoned her maid, and for a while with the aid of the hotel
officials, she sought for a place near Paris, yet far enough away to
escape its harassing heat and noises. By night Madelene had decided upon
a farm near the village of Epernon.
"We can get in to the city to shop, Marie," she told her maid. "But Mr.
Graves simply can't stand the hot weather in town."
"He does look sick and worried, ma'am, doesn't he?" agreed the maid.
Twenty-four hours later Frederick and Madelene were settled in a pretty
villa nestled at the edge of the forest. Nature in its noblest
expression surrounded them. At the going down of the sun, Madelene stood
beside her husband on the porch, and pressed her cheek fondly against
his shoulder.
"It's so beautiful, isn't it, dear?" she whispered coaxingly.
Out of his wife's words and the gentle gloaming, came a deadly sense of
loneliness. A shiver shook Frederick from head to foot. His only answer
was an ejaculated affirmative in a hoarse voice. The weird sighing of
the trees took him back to Ithaca, back to the ragged rocks ... to
Tessibel. For a moment he was so agonized that tears stung his lids to a
deep hurt.
If in noisy Paris he had been carried in spirit to the squatter country,
where a girl stood and gazed at him with red-brown eyes, how much more
did she haunt him in the quiet spot where the leaves sang the same old
tunes they sang in her world, where the wind played among them as it did
in the Silent City! Now and then from yonder clump of trees a bird
twittered; an owl screeched from the tall tree at the right, and farther
on a brook chanted its purling song like Tessibel's brook under the
mudcellar. Oh, his dear little girl! His Tess of the Storm Country! If
in those olden days he had desired her, now that desire was a hundred
times more poignant. In all his willful life he had never suffered like
this. Tess with her clinging arms, her sweet, winning ways! He sighed a
deep, long sigh. Yet soon he would hear something from her. He had
written her, ... had sent her money for the necessities of her simple
life ... his heart throbbed at the thought of a letter from her.
Madelene's conversation he had not heard, and it was not until she spoke
directly to him that he remembered her presence.
"Don't you think so, Fred?" she was asking.
He heaved another sigh as he left Ithaca and came back to France after
that flight of fancy.
"Don't I think what? I really didn't hear what you said, Madelene," he
admitted guiltily.
Madelene experienced a hot flash of indignation.
"Do you mean to say you've allowed me to talk all this time and you
haven't heard a word I've said?" she demanded in a thin, rasping voice.
"I'm sorry," murmured Frederick. "Pardon."
Then the girl lapsed into a sulky silence, and Frederick, too sick at
heart, too indifferent to her likes and dislikes to care, did not
encourage her to repeat what she had said.
It was perhaps a week later when young Mrs. Graves felt her first real
jealousy. In the happiness of her hasty marriage, she had almost
forgotten the story told her by the gossips of Ithaca. It was only when
her husband's eyes were encircled and darkened by a far-away expression
that Tess entered her mind. But even then, after a glance in the mirror,
she dismissed the little singer contemptuously.
One morning just before breakfast, they were standing under the trees.
On Frederick's face was that dreary look of discontent. Madelene
contemplated him steadily. She had watched and studied, but had not yet
solved the problem that occupied her mind. Was the squatter girl the
obstacle? she wondered. It didn't seem possible. Frederick was so
fastidious. Why, the girl could scarcely speak a word of good English!
But it would do no harm to make sure. She decided to speak to her
husband of Tessibel Skinner. But how?
Frederick owed her some consideration, and Madelene deeply desired he
should be more attentive to her. Suddenly she laughed aloud. Frederick
turned, the cloud partially lifting from his eyes.
"A happy thought, I dare say?" he inquired.
"Not very," answered Madelene flippantly. "I was wondering how long it
would take that Skinner girl to earn enough money to pay for a trip like
this."
Had a bomb gone off in his face, Frederick couldn't have been more
appalled. His brows drew together in a dark frown; his face grew livid
and tensely lined. Madelene noted the effect of her words. Her suspicion
was confirmed,--the problem solved! It was the squatter girl who stood
between her and her husband!
"I forbid you," said Frederick in a low, angry voice, "ever to mention
that name again."
Then he whirled about and walked away through the trees. In alarm,
Madelene sped after him.
"Frederick!" she implored. "I'm awfully sorry I said that.... I didn't
mean to hurt you."
He shook her from his arm.
"Very well," he replied savagely, "but just please don't speak of her
again."
Tears blinded the girl's vision.... An enraged feeling rose in her
heart. Never in all her spoiled life had any one spoken to her in such a
way. If Ebenezer had been there, Frederick would never have dared!
By this time, having stood mute for several seconds, she was thoroughly
indignant. This was her first real conflict with Frederick, and she
began to feel ill as well as incensed.
"It's dreadfully disagreeable of you to get angry over a little thing
like that," she said impetuously. "One would think you loved that girl
and not me. I was told lots of times you were crazy about her, but of
course,--"
She hesitated now. She wanted to say cruel things about the squatter
girl back in Ithaca, but she dared not. She was overwrought with anger,
but her husband's threatening face forced her to silence.
"Are you determined to keep harping on a subject I wish to forget?" His
words carried an ominous meaning, which quickened her already awakened
jealousy. Determined to probe the matter to the bottom she demanded.
"Why should you wish to forget her? Does she disturb your memory as much
as that?"
"Perhaps," replied Frederick gloomily.
He saw the danger involved in the discussion and curbed his tongue. Then
he left her and walked quickly into the house. Madelene followed, angry
and rebellious, and found him seated at the table, white-faced, with the
morning mail unnoticed before him. Still enraged, she glanced over the
letters indifferently.
"They're all for me with the exception of one," she said sulkily, "and
it's an Ithaca letter.... May I open it?"
Frederick took it from her and looked at the envelope. His name was
staring back at him as if every cramped letter were an accusing eye, and
the writing was in the hand of Tessibel Skinner! He studied it a
minute....
"You have mail of your own to read, my dear," he said quite kindly.
"Let's have breakfast."
When during the morning Frederick found a moment to himself, he took
from his pocket the letter that had been searing through his clothing to
his heart. Gazing upon it, he shook as if he had the ague. Trembling
hands held it up to the light. Several times he turned it over. What had
Tess written to him? Had she told him, as he had her, that she loved him
better than all the rest of the world? He uttered a desperate
ejaculation and stretched out his arms. If he could have spanned the
world that separated them, he would have dragged her to him by the
terrible force of his desire. Again he turned the letter over.
Something kept him from ripping it open. He longed to delay the
happiness of reading it, and while he waited, he lifted it to his lips
and passionately kissed the crude writing. It ran up hill a little, but
that only made him smile and love it the more. It brought memories of
past joys, memories of Tessibel's endeavor to learn. Poor little child!
Suddenly he slipped the paper knife into the envelope and slowly dragged
it across the top.... Then he inserted his fingers and pulled out--the
bill he had sent her. In a sudden passion he looked frantically into the
empty envelope.... Nothing!... Absolute emptiness!
The money fluttered from his hand to the floor, where it lay like a
sentient thing, staring back as if mocking him. He stood half-blindly
gazing upon it. When he looked more closely, he stooped and picked it
up. There written across its yellow back was the one little line,
"Darlin', I air a prayin' for you every day. Tessibel."
In a storm of remorse, he collapsed to the floor with his face in his
hands.