squatter girl. He did not understand that beneath her were everlasting
arms, that her life was held in the hollow of a hand more powerful than
his own.

"I believe, my girl," said he, without preliminaries, "I told you when
the church took action against you, you'd be sent to some place where
girls of your class go, didn't I?"

Tess didn't move by so much as a wink. She seemed simply to have grown
deaf and dumb. How could she answer when she had not heard? She was
staring back into the man's bold, dark eyes. Her silence was like a
spark to his inflammatory temper.

"Aren't you going to answer me, Miss?" His rasping voice aroused Tess
from her trance.

"I didn't hear what you said," she told him, still very calm.

"I said," replied Ebenezer, arrogantly, "you're going to be sent to a
reform school."

"Today?" asked Tess, breathing deeply, now fully possessed of her
senses.

"Yes, today." Then he remembered Madelene.... he had made her a promise.
"But I'll help you to get out after a while, if you tell me who--who
brought you to this condition." He threw out both hands disdainfully
toward her. Waldstricker's white hands, hands stronger than God's! Who
had dared say it?

The girl cast her eyes to the rafters. There, the nets hung in strings
and mingled their tassled ends with the dry herbs. There, somewhere,
were that other pair of hands upholding her. She lowered her eyes again
to the man.

"Don't you hear me talkin' to you?" he grated. "I said you were going
today--but if you tell me--"

He bit off his words, her apparent helplessness shaming him to silence.
Then the import of what he had said flashed over Tessibel and she swayed
backward. This small break in that superb calm brought Waldstricker
forward the step the girl had yielded.

"Are you going to tell me?" he demanded again.

"Nope," said Tess rigidly, "Air I to go with ye now, this minute?"

He inclined his head with a bitter nod. "Yes," he snarled. He strode to
the door, and addressed the officer. "Come in! Come in! She's a hardened
huzzy.... Serve the warrant on her."

Tessibel took the paper but dropped it to the floor without glancing at
it. She didn't care what it contained, for minute by minute came the
sweet assurance from up there among the nets that God had heard and
would answer.

The officer was staring at her, askance. He remembered distinctly when
she had climbed up the ivy on the county jail to see her father. Then
she had been