The Secret of the Storm Country Part 32

"Ye'll get better with the goin' of the warm weather," consoled Jake.

"These days be hot now for the wellest of us."

"Yep," murmured Daddy Skinner, drowsily.

Tessibel left the two men alone, and went back to the kitchen. Her throat was filled with longing, her lips drawn a little closer together.

She sat down near the door, looking out upon the lake. She dared not open the letter then, not until Jake had gone and Daddy was asleep.

Brewer came out quietly, his cheerful manner subdued somewhat.

Tess got to her feet. She tried to smile, but the serious expression on the squatter's face brought her quickly to his side.

"Jake," she murmured, quick-breathed, "ye think he air awful sick, eh?"

Brewer shifted his gaze out through the door. The sight of the girl's pleading face hurt him.

"He ain't real pert; that air a fact," was his reply.

"We air doin' everythin' we can think of," Tess told him. "Mr. Young's doctor comes awful often, an' he says Daddy air got heart trouble."

"He do seem to have a hard time breathin'," answered Jake, trying to be cheerful; "but if I was you, Tessie, I wouldn't worry. He'll be gettin'

well. He air stronger'n a horse."

Tess wanted to believe her father was better. She couldn't allow her mind to take any other view of it.

"He air always been right rugged," she said, nodding, "an' if his heart'd only stop beatin' so hard--" She hesitated and touched Brewer's arm. "Thank ye fer bringin' my letter," she interrupted herself irrelevantly.

"That air all right, Tess," smiled Brewer. "Ye see when I go to the Postoffice fer our mail, I ask fer your'n an' fer Longman's, an' I most allers get some fer one or t'other.... Nice day, eh, ain't it?"

"Yep," affirmed Tess, dully. She bade the fisherman good-bye and stood watching him take his way along the lakeside until he had disappeared.

When she turned she caught sight of Andy's glistening eyes looking at her.

"Jake air a good feller, ain't he, brat?" he asked.

Tess came directly under the ceiling hole.

"Yep, he sure air," she answered. "Andy, I air a feelin' so bad today.

Will ye listen for Daddy if I go out a spell?"

"Course I will, go long," he urged. "Close the door when ye go out. I'll keep my ears open."

Tess walked slowly along the lake sh.o.r.e path, her head drooping wearily.

She knew the letter in her pocket was from Frederick. To have opened it even before Andy's loving eyes, or in the presence of any other person, would have been, in her opinion, a desecration.

Against the high gray shoulder of a ragged rock, she sat down pensively.

It was here she and Frederick had spent so many happy hours and, now, alone, she had come to read his letter. She took it slowly from her pocket, studied the picture of the ship in the corner, and whispered over and over the name under it. It seemed almost impossible to tear it open. What had he told her? She pressed the envelope to her lips. Her darling's hands had touched it, his fingers had written her name upon it. Ripping it slowly along the edge, she took out the contents, and there fluttered to the rock a yellow backed bill. Tess picked it up and examined it carefully. Frederick had sent her some money. Tess laid it down again and placed a small stone upon it. Then she took up the letter.

For a few seconds her eyes misted so profusely she could not read. She dashed the back of her hand across her lids, choking down hard sobs that rose insistently. When she could control her emotions enough to read, she fixed her eyes upon the first words: "My own darling:"

Crunching the paper between her fingers, she dropped her head and wept wildly for several minutes. She wanted Frederick then as she had never wanted a soul in all the living world.

"I am here alone in the writing room," Tess read on, wiping her eyes.

"Oh, Tessibel, when I think of you there without me, I go almost mad!

What I've done seems the very worst thing in the world, and it grows worse as the hours go by. Forgive me, my darling. I dared not come back after that night; I was afraid some one would see me and tell my mother or some of the Waldstrickers. Tessibel, if I could only jump into the sea and get back to you, I should be the happiest fellow in the world. I love you more and more, and I'm perfectly miserable without you."

Her fingers on her lips, and her eyes on the letter, Tess wept softly.

Oh, how she loved him, too, her husband.

"I won't stay away very long, my dearest," the letter continued. "I'm coming back to you and shall never leave you again. I'm sending you some money which I want you to use, and I'll send more very soon. This will make you comfortable for a little while."

Tess picked up the bill and looked at it once more. Then she put it down again and went on reading the letter.

"I shall always love you better than any one else in the world, Tessibel ... when I return we shall be together most of the time. I shall, I hope, get over my fear of Ebenezer Waldstricker. I'm studying in my mind a way to make it possible for us to have a home together, of which no one shall know. Believe that I love you ... always and always, my darling.

Your Frederick."

Tess lifted her head with a long-drawn sigh. But there was something more to read, a line or two tacked on the end of the letter.

"P. S. My darling, I want you to burn this! I fear some one might get hold of it.

F."

After reading over and over the letter, until she had almost learned it by heart, she went back to the shanty, to do as Frederick had bidden her. Kissing the pages again and again and weeping softly so as not to disturb Andy, Tess burned the letter.

That night when Daddy Skinner was sleeping, his laboring breath heard plainly through the shanty, a red-brown head bent over the kitchen table. Around the flickering light fluttered the summer moths, and once in a while one of Tessibel's beloved night things dashed in at the window, took a zig-zag course about the lamp, and flew out again into the shadowy weeping willows. A long, sobbing sigh from the girl brought the dwarf's eager face to the hole in the ceiling.

"Air ye sick, brat?" he whispered.

Tess lifted her eyes from the table.

"Nope, Andy, I were thinkin', that's all," she answered, low-toned.

And perhaps fifteen minutes later, when she had written a name on several envelopes and had torn them up in seeming disapproval, Andy ventured again.

"Ye act awful sad, brat dear. Can't ye tell me about it?"

Tessibel rose to her feet, the gleam of the night light radiating upon the red-brown of her eyes. She swallowed the lump in her throat before she could speak.

"I air a little sad, Andy dear," she murmured.

"What were ye doin', honey?" asked the dwarf.

Without answering at that moment, Tess took up the envelope she'd sealed. Two steps took her to the mantel, where she placed the letter against the clock, standing a minute to gaze at it. The next instant she explained to the little man leaning above her.

"I were writin' a little, Andy, darlin'."

Then she went softly into Daddy Skinner's room and closed the door.