r
suspicions incorrect. She'd have to tell her something reasonable. Ah,
she would pretend she'd come about the church singing.

Beyond and below the lake lay grey and somber, shadowed by the winter
sky. The wind stung her face and tweaked her fingers through her warm
gloves. Directly in front of the Young house, she reined in her horse
and contemplated it. How much had happened since she had married
Frederick, and Ebenezer had married Helen Young--how much to her and to
him!

Frederick's conduct had destroyed her illusions about marriage. She
could be supremely happy if he would treat her a little more as if she
were his wife, more as the husbands of her friends treated them. She
rode on again slowly until through the willow trees she saw the smoke
curling upward from the chimney of the Skinner shanty. Her heart beat
furiously when she slipped from her horse and tied him to a fence post.
Intuitively, she felt she'd find her husband with Tessibel Skinner. She
walked the rest of the way down the hill, stopped before the hut and
looked it over. All without lay dressed in its winter garb, and the
small house, save for the smoke, appeared uninhabited.

Then as a human sound from a tomb, came Frederick's voice. Madelene
staggered back. She realized that not for one single instant had she
doubted she would find her husband there. And he was there! She'd heard
his voice passionately insisting something. Red fire flashed in front of
her eyes.

Without thought of consequences, she flung open the door and stood on
the threshold, breathless and crimson, in all her indignant wifehood.
Frederick stood near the chair in which sat Tessibel. In one single
moment Madelene sent an appraising glance over the girl huddled in the
wooden rocker--a woman's glance, mercilessly discovering her condition.
Then her blazing eyes came back to Frederick. He had not spoken at her
appearance--he had only reeled backward a few steps.

"You see I followed you," said Madelene in cold, metallic tones. "I knew
you were coming here when you left home."

Tessibel got up slowly, went forward, and closed the door. Once more the
man she loved had brought humiliation upon her.

"He were just a goin' to go!" she whispered, and she went back and
dropped into her chair.

"Oh, he was, eh?" Madelene laughed harshly. "It's very good of you to
let him go. I'll give you to understand my husband--"

She made a rapid step toward Tess, whose head went up instant