body. She crushed the infant to her as if
indeed Teola's words were true. The small dark head fell limply upon her
bosom, the thin legs hung straight and bare over the soiled jacket. One
little hand clutched her torn sleeve, as if there lived in the
infant-brain a fear of harm. Tess, instinct with potent life and rage,
wheeled like a tawny tigress furiously upon Frederick and Teola.

"Air it any of yer damn business," she demanded hotly, "if I wants to
have a brat?"

She had silenced the student by the condemning words, which seared his
soul like molten lead. A dazed terror gathered in his eyes. He smoothed
his forehead with trembling fingers. The lightning forked about the
squatter and the babe, illuminating the small head and the bony body of
the child. Tess felt it shiver and mechanically she lifted her skirt,
wrapping him close within it. Her gaze took in sneeringly the shrinking
form of Teola, and the arm of the student encircling his sister's waist.
For one instant she hated them both with all the strength of her
half-savage nature. Still, no thought came of breaking her promise.

"Ye can both go to hell," she ended distinctly.

A fierce cry from Frederick closed her lips, and the anger within her
changed to terror. What was she doing? Blasting his love, his faith,
his confidence with words that blackened her soul with perfidy and her
life with dishonor. Had she not told the student that long-ago night
that she loved him?--that she was his squatter for ever and ever? And
was she not now at this moment keeping a secret from him for his own
sake? Something in her small, ghastly face brought the lad in his boyish
agony, impulsively forward.

"For God's love--and mine, Tess--tell me, it isn't true! Tell me you are
shielding someone else--"

Teola caught her breath painfully, and Frederick ended:

"Some other squatter girl."

"I ain't got no other squatter's brat here," she cried, turning her eyes
upon Teola. "It ain't no other squatter's brat, air it?"

"No, no, Frederick," replied Teola, white and wan; "she has told you the
truth--it isn't another squatter's child."

Hope died in the boy and outraged feeling leaped into its place. He held
Tessibel's eyes with his relentlessly.

"Did you expect to mix prayers for your father with filth like that?" he
demanded, pointing to the hidden infant in the fold of her dress. "Did
you expect God to hear you, when your life was full of--sin?... I am
ashamed I ever lo