l, solemn-eyed friend shared
the burden of her heart. When she lifted her face again and repeated, "I
can't tell," Deforrest Young placed his fingers under her chin and kept
his eyes steadily upon her until the transparent lids drooped and the
long lashes rested on her cheeks.

"Is it something you'll tell me some time?" he asked.

Tessibel shuddered, and made no reply, although there was a slight
negative shake of her head.

"Then I'll ask you another question, Tess dear," insisted Young. "Isn't
there something I can do to help you?"

Tessibel shook her head, a violent blush suffusing her face. Tears
gathered thickly in the brown eyes. To see her thus was agony.... His
great love sought to share and bear her suffering, yet he could not
force her confidence.

"I'm going to exact one promise from you," he continued, much moved.

"I'll be awful glad to promise what I can," she murmured humbly.

"Then it's this." Compassion for her abject misery was expressed in the
very tones of his deep voice. "If at any time in the future you need
me ... for anything, no matter what, will you--will you come to me and
tell me? Will you let me help you?"

Impetuous appreciation of his sincerity caused Tess to touch his arm.

"Nobody were ever so good to me in all the world," she said brokenly.

Never had Deforrest Young so keenly desired the right to care for her as
he did then. The impulse to take her in his arms, to tell her, as he had
once, that he loved her, almost unnerved him; but he could not. Tess
seemed of late to have grown away from him, to be no longer the
light-hearted child she had been, even in that dark time when her father
was in prison.

"You haven't promised me yet, Tessibel," he insisted seriously.

"I promise ... sure!" said Tess, swallowing hard.

In the silence that followed, Pete, as though conscious that all was
not well with his adored mistress, rose on his haunches, and tried to
kiss her face. The dog's sympathy was sweet. She wanted Frederick so
badly! Oh, she thought, if she dared ask Deforrest. She would! She could
not bear another night of this uncertainty, this suspense.

"I air wishin' to ask ye somethin'," she stammered. "Don't tell anybody,
will ye?"

"Certainly not," declared Young, quickly.

"Do ye--do ye happen to know where--the student Graves air--today?"

Young considered the long curls falling over each shoulder and the
anxious eyes. She was staring fixedly at him. Was the stud