yours, you'll have
all you can 'tend to."

"I'll go," said the big man, hoarsely, "but I don't say I won't come
again, and I warn you, as I warned that squatter girl, when the time
comes--"

"Get out!" snarled Deforrest, starting down the steps, "and get quick."

And the elder, not daring to stay, turned and went toward the pear
orchard. It was then, that he glanced up and saw Tessibel and her little
one at an upper window, watching with startled eyes for his departure.
The baby turned from the window and raised his arms to some one within,
and a hand below a man's rough coat sleeve clasped the boy and lifted
him up out of Waldstricker's sight.

Walking along the road to Ithaca, he reviewed the exciting events of the
morning and tried to consider and determine the complications they
involved. He was unable to find a motive for Frederick's dramatic
announcement, although he did not for a moment doubt its truth. It was
queer though that, after having kept still so long, he should blurt out
his secret in that fashion. He considered his promise not to tell
Madelene and concluded he'd been wise. Probably Frederick wouldn't live
long anyway, and in the natural course of things, Madelene would soon be
free and the Graves chapter ended. He wondered what had kept Tess silent
all these years. How had she withstood his persecution even in her
betrayer's presence and made no sign? He was glad she had, but he
couldn't understand why. Evidently the girl's disclosure to Young wasn't
going to make any difference in his brother-in-law's conduct. Suddenly,
like a bolt shot into the midst of his revery, rose the question. Whose
arm was that? Young was on the porch, the girl and the baby in plain
sight at the window. But there was some one else, a man. He had seen his
arm and coat sleeve.

"That's certainly peculiar," he ruminated. "I didn't know Young had any
one else there. It may be all right, of course, but it seems mighty
suspicious."

All the way home and all the evening, the thing bothered him. In every
way imaginable he tried to account for that other man in Young's house.
He canvassed the neighborhood. A chance visitor wouldn't be upstairs,
and anyhow he'd have looked out to see the row with Young. But this man
kept away from the window. He'd only shown his hand and arm. Whoever he
was, he was hiding in Young's home.

Was his brother-in-law a party to it? A man couldn't be kept for any
length of time in the house without