to recall all he had said. Oh, yes, he was coming back. What
did he mean by coming back? When? She dully wondered if it would be
tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. Three days, perhaps,
three long, interminable days to think of him and to long for him. Could
she live three days? She sprang to her feet. She must see him
again--now--this minute; hear him unsay that awful thing. Why, he
couldn't belong to Madelene Waldstricker! Like a deer, Tess sped along
the rocks in the direction of the lane. A night bird brushed a slender
wing against her curls as he shot by her. To him she paid no heed save
to swerve a little.

Wildly, twice, three times she cried, "Frederick!"

An owl hooted a mocking response from the willow tree nearby.

"Frederick! Frederick!" rang through the night, out over the lake,
unanswered. He was gone! The realization of this brought the girl
crouching, shivering to the shore, where her feet were lapped by the
incoming waves. And there she lay, until as in a dream, a bewildered
dream, she heard Daddy Skinner's voice calling her. By a supreme effort
she gathered her senses together.

"I air comin', Daddy."

She stumbled through the night back to the shanty, her secret locked in
her breast.

CHAPTER XVII

TESSIBEL'S PRAYER

For four lingering days, hour after hour, Tess of the Storm Country
waited for Frederick. He had promised to return, and so each day when
her household duties were completed, she hastened to the ragged rocks at
the edge of the forest. But her eager hope passed into sick apprehension
as the lingering twilights of successive evenings deepened into the
darkness of night and he did not come. Tess grew paler and more
dejected, so that even Daddy Skinner's fading sight remarked it.

"Ain't feelin' quite pert, be ye, brat?" he inquired.

Tessibel started nervously.... It was habitual now if any one spoke to
her quickly.

"I ain't sick, daddy," she assured him. "I guess it air the hot day
makin' me tired."

"Nuff to bake the hair off a cast iron pup," observed Andy, from the
garret hole.

"I'll bet it air some warm up there, pal," sympathized Orn.

"Ye bet yer neck," agreed Andy cheerfully.

Then Tessibel hopefully started for the rocks in search of the sunshine
which had left her life with Frederick four days before.

* * * * *

Deforrest Young, too, had noticed the change in his little friend ...
had observed her extre