illed in the fire on the hill last
winter."

The muscles relaxed in the squatter's face. Her legs refused to bear the
slender body, and Tessibel dropped again at Teola's side. The kiss she
had cherished burned hot upon her lips. Her student lived. The
minister's daughter cried for the other one, for him who had called her
Miss Skinner, and who afterward helped her smuggle Frederick into the
opera-house.

"Why! he air been dead a long time, ain't he?"

"Yes; six months."

"And ye air a-lovin' him yet?"

"Yes."

"But he air dead," philosophized Tess. "He ain't with no other girl."

Teola shivered violently.

"Oh, I know that; I know that. But I--I need him. I want him so!"

"But he air dead," said Tess again steadily.

For many minutes neither spoke. For Teola's new burst of agony settled a
solemnity upon Tess which she could not throw off. Forgetting her
squatter position, she slipped her hand between the white fingers of the
weeper. Teola did not care if the girl's finger-nails were filled with
black soot, did not care if the squatter were covered with a dirty,
ragged dress, or if her bare feet were calloused from the rocks. Tess
was a human being who sympathized with her, and sympathy was as
necessary to Teola's soul at that moment as breath was to her body. In
the spasmodic whitening of the other girl's face Tess realized a
desperate heart agony.

[Illustration: "THEN YE AIR COMIN' HOME WITH ME TO THE SHANTY."]

"Ye air sick," she said at last, an enlightened expression widening her
lids. "A woman's kind of sick, ain't it? Eh?"

"Yes," answered Teola, flushing deeply; "yes."

"Then ye air a-comin' home with me to the shanty." Tess muttered this in
a sly voice, almost in a whisper.

Teola raised her glance, and read in the eyes bent upon her that her
whole secret was known. Tessibel Skinner, her father's foe, the daughter
of a murderer, was helping her to her feet.

"I'm too sick to walk," she wept, in a barely audible voice. "I tried to
throw myself from the rocks, over there, but the water was so silent,
blue and terrible, that I couldn't."

"Ye be comin' with me," insisted Tess stolidly.

She was urging her forward, holding Teola by both arms.

"I can't! I can't! Leave me here--I am so ill! I am going to die!"

"Ye air to come," commanded Tess. "And, if ye will, I'll lug ye when ye
can't walk. Women like ye don't die, and Mother Moll will come to the
hut to-day."

"Mother Moll!" echoed Te