hin hair, that
her heart was sore and wildly impatient. Faith in Frederick's God had
been forgotten--no other thought occupied her mind save that they were
going to take away her beloved--the only one left to her. She deigned
not a glance at Professor Young after the deputy had gone, and measured
the oilcloth-covered floor restlessly with the stamp, stamp, stamp of
the big boots.

Professor Young's presence was no more to her than the small insects
which scurried from the edge of the floor covering into the light and
then back into their hiding places, afraid of the human giants which
loomed up before them. What did she care for reading, writing and such
things. She wanted to be with Daddy Skinner--wanted him home in the
shanty, as of old.

She kept her eyes riveted upon the open door. Suddenly she leaned
forward, for the ominous clanging of irons came to her ears. She thought
of the night she had been found scaling the ivy to Daddy's cell--how
long she had waited in the darkness for only a little word about him.
They had given her none, and her vivid imagination brought back the
anguish of that lonely walk through the storm to the hut.

Approaching footsteps made her alert, and in the paling of the sweet
face Professor Young divined the tumult going on in the tender,
uneducated heart.

"Child," exclaimed he, "don't make your father's going away harder for
him!"

"Shut up," muttered Tess, just as the huge shackled prisoner appeared at
the door.

Every muscle in the strong young body stiffened. Tess had not seen her
father since the trial. Intensity narrowed the eyes, the drooping white
lids covering the lights in the brown iris, the small hands clutched
convulsively. Daddy Skinner--her Daddy--was standing before her, his
blue-gray eyes piercing her very soul from under the long shaggy brows.
She bounded toward him, and two creatures of primeval passion met in one
long embrace. It was the passion of an aboriginal father for his child,
of a primitive girl watching her loved one separate from her through the
portals of death. Tess had lifted herself deftly to the bible-back, and
lowered her head to the grizzled face, the man's large mouth covering
the twitching lips of the girl. The shrouding red hair hid the squatter
faces from the professor, and he turned his eyes away. He could not look
upon them without distressing emotion. The strange maid was an enigma to
him and he found himself wishing that he might guide h