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Her brother turned and strode up and down the room, while Mrs. Waldstricker's eyes, full of questioning anguish, followed his tall figure. "I suppose he said I'd marry Tessibel Skinner. Is that it?" His voice was low, deep and intense. Wheeling about he looked across at his sister. She got up from her chair and went to him.
"If your father were here, you wouldn't dare to say such things to me.... I want you to sit down, do you hear?" Frederick dropped into a chair wearily. The time had come to tell his mother that Tessibel Skinner was his wife. After that was done, there could be no such arguments. He started to speak, but his mother interrupted him. "Madelene Waldstricker's wild over you," she explained.
"But I am telling you the truth!" he exclaimed miserably. His voice broke. "I can't save you, Tessibel. Waldstricker can do anything he wants. Why why Waldstricker's hands're stronger are stronger than God's." She heard his words as if in a dream. "Stronger'n God's," echoed through the recesses of her brain in fearful mockery. She was lost, engulfed in the hatred of Waldstricker.
If they knew, then Frederick had told them. "And you've got to marry him," Waldstricker's hoarse voice came to her ears. Why, she was married to him!... that long ago night. If he had told them anything, why had he not told them all? She dared not look around, but waited breathlessly. "We've decided," Ebenezer proceeded, "that if you consent to our plans, you will suffer no further disgrace.
Tess made a negative shake with her head, and a look of fear crept into her eyes. Through Waldstricker's baby she had measured the height of God's love and forgiveness, and through his own unrighteous arrogancy she had plumbed the depths of human woe. She thrilled at the thought of little Elsie, of Helen's joy this birthday of Jesus, the tender teacher of her youth.
Through every dream, like a thread of hate, ran the purpose to get Tess, and when he had the girl, to torture her through her child. When he arrived at Waldstricker's office, he found the elder absent. An evil leer on his face, he swaggered up and down the street, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. He had made the great discovery of his life.
"But what does get me is why the five thousand Waldstricker's put up, ain't been bait to catch Bishop before this," he said ruminatively. "Well, it hain't, that's evident," growled Burnett, setting his teeth. As a rabbit lifts its head, frightened at unusual sights and sounds, so Jake Brewer lifted a startled face as Howard Burnett pulled up his horse suddenly at the squatter's side.
"Oh, I do wish Deforrest were here!" she ended irrelevantly. "I do, too; but as long as he is not, you must trust me to do what I think best." He went out abruptly, and Helen Waldstricker cried herself to sleep. That evening Frederick Graves shook in his shoes when he returned home and received Waldstricker's message to meet him in the library at nine o'clock.
She went out this afternoon and hasn't been seen since; at least, hadn't been found when I left there about seven o'clock. Mr. Waldstricker's tearing around through the snow like a wild man and every one at Hayt's is out hunting for her." Warmly wrapped, Frederick leaned back in the sleigh.
Fred, run into the office in about an hour, I want to talk to you." Frederick brightened. "And I want to talk to you," he answered. He swung to Madelene's side, drew a long breath and made a quick resolution that before long he would make his confession to Ebenezer. At the appointed time, Frederick entered Waldstricker's office. He'd resolved to make a clean breast of his marriage to Tess.
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