A 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.
Professor Young 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 her faith 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.