If you tremble that way, you'll drive me mad. I'm only going
to marry her.... Well, to pay the money, that's all."

He cut and clipped the words as though he hated them, yet finished his
explanation determinedly. As keenly as a darting flame, it burned into
Tessibel's soul.

"Tell me ... more," she breathed dizzily.

"It'll only mean you and I will be apart for a little while, Tess,"
stated Frederick. "When I get back home, I'm coming straight to you,
and--"

"She air lovin' ye, ye said?" interrupted Tess, huskily.

"But I don't love _her_, Tess!... I love only you!... You know that,
sweetheart!... You hear me, darling?"

"Yep, I hear," whispered the girl.

Frederick settled back against the rocks, drawing her into his arms.

"My father," he proceeded more calmly, "left us without any money. I
suppose I didn't realize how hard it's been for mother. She's only just
told me she'd mortgaged the lake place to Waldstricker and had borrowed
money from him. In a way I've been awfully selfish.... I've only thought
of you, dear."

Of course, now she couldn't tell him that intimate secret! If he knew,
he couldn't, he just couldn't do the thing his mother demanded; and she
had promised to help him. He had said it was the only way she could be
of any service, and her great love rose up and demanded the sacrifice.
Tess scarcely recognized her own voice when she next spoke.

"Did ye tell Madelene--I mean Miss Waldstricker--ye'd marry her?" she
asked.

"Well ... yes," stammered Frederick.

"And ye--ye--ye kissed 'er?... Oh, say ye didn't kiss 'er!... Ye didn't,
did ye?"

It was a plea to which Frederick would have given worlds to truthfuly
answer, "No." But his conscience, evidently sensitive in small matters,
compelled an almost inaudible, "Yes."

Raging jealousy, unendurable pain, arose within her.

"But ye couldn't--be married--to 'er, Frederick. It ain't possible, it
ain't!"

"I know I'm married to you," the boy assured her, swiftly. "I'd only be
married to her in the eyes of the world!"

The eyes of the world, the world through which she had so far walked
with proudly lifted head! Her dearly cherished love seemed to be
tumbling in ignominious ruins, and that very love had left her
defenseless. No one would ever know he belonged to her; that she
belonged to him. She would have to creep with bowed head in assumed
shame and disgrace even among the squatters.

"I'll die," she shivered, thinking of the coming s