She went forward toward Waldstricker, her eyes raised appealingly to
his.

"Won't you make Mr.... Mr. Graves keep away?" she petitioned. "I don't
want him here."

"Yes, it looked, when I came around the corner, as if you didn't want
him, miss," scoffed the elder. Then he laughed, and the laugh cut the
throbbing girl to the quick. "Very much as if you wanted him to go....
Now, then, sir, what's this girl to you?"

"I'm nothing to him, Mr. Waldstricker," she asserted, without giving
Frederick a chance to speak.

Graves still felt that maddening passion, that demand for his own.

"She lies," he said in low tones.

Tess turned to him passionately.

"You know what I say is true. You came here without my desiring it! I
don't want anything to do with you.... Haven't you both harmed me
enough?... Do I ever come around and hurt you?... Why don't you tell the
truth?"

"All right," he shouted, his irritation at her resistance overcoming his
fear of the elder. "If you want the truth, here it is. I'm----"

"Don't! Don't!" screamed Tess.

"Ah!" hissed Waldstricker's lips like a jet of steam.

He'd caught within his powerful net the girl he wanted. He'd bring to
light the secret that'd preyed upon his sister's spirits so long. For
the squatter girl he felt no pity, for Frederick only contempt. They
were both weaklings that he'd sweep away in his pursuit of Young and the
squatters.

"He's sick," said Tessibel, trying to discount Frederick's confession.
"Your brother-in-law's sick. You can see that!... He thinks ... why,
he's mad!"

"I'm not mad!" Frederick turned upon her fiercely, then back to the big
man whose eagerness bent him forward. "I'm the father of her boy."

The blood left Waldstricker's face, so that it looked like carved
marble.

"So 'tis so," he got out, "and you admit it, you cur, and you dared to
marry my sister? Now, as God lets me live, you'll both suffer for this,
and as for you, Tessibel Skinner, look out for that bastard of yours!"

The squatter girl uttered a heart-broken cry, and turning, fled around
the rocks into the lane and up the hill.

CHAPTER XLII

A MAN'S ARM AT THE WINDOW

It seemed to Tess that her feet were leaden, as if she could never
traverse the distance between the ragged rocks and the house. The
interview with Frederick had been a terrible ordeal, and she was sick
with disgust from his odious kisses. Waldstricker's untimely appearance
and his stinging taunts