ever,
never come again!"

Frederick stepped over the threshold, and Tess shut the door behind
him.

CHAPTER XXXIII

HANDS STRONGER THAN WALDSTRICKER'S

Tess stood with swift-coming breath, her back to the door, waiting.
Frederick must leave before she dared speak to Andy. It seemed an
eternity ere the sound of the retreating footsteps died away, and she
knew he was gone.

Then she started across the room, haltingly. Strange, how difficult it
was to walk, and how giddy her head felt! What was it that had happened?
What was going to happen a thousand times worse? Frederick's brutality
left her bruised and broken. His threats twisted themselves through the
tangled tumult of her thoughts and his sinister suggestions stunned and
stupefied her.

Frederick had come and gone! She remembered that. Her skin still burned
where his hot lips had touched her. He had told her he loved her, had
begged her to say she loved him! Love? Yes, she had loved him--she did
love him, but her love lay low, its structure, like a squatter's hut,
she had seen, shattered on the sand by a storm.

Tess put a stick of wood in the stove, and a second later forgot she'd
done it.

Ebenezer Waldstricker came into her mind vaguely ... vindictive and
violent. Her hand went suddenly to her face. He was going to send her to
a reform school, going to take her from the shanty for years! How
powerful he was! Frederick had said Waldstricker's hands were stronger
than God's. What strong hands he must have--those hands descending upon
her defenseless, desolate life.

Andy was peering through the hole. Tessibel collapsed into Daddy
Skinner's chair.

"Brat," he said in a whisper, "I'm comin' down!"

Tess mechanically got up and barred the door.... Then she returned to
her seat. The dwarf was already squatted beside it, his eyes fastened on
the girl in eloquent silence. His chin sank between his knees. Then the
two of them sat.... The crackling of the freshly burning wood and the
ticking of the clock were the only sounds in the room.

"I heard what the man said 'bout Waldstricker's hands bein' stronger'n
God's," reflected Andy, aloud, presently. Then he raised his body a
little from the floor that he might look into the girl's face. "Say,
brat, has old Eb got any marks on his hands?"

Tess shook her head, brown eyes sombrous with suffering.

"No," she denied. "His hands are big an' white an' long an' soft."

Andy pondered a minute.

"They