"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.
"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 Teola. "Mother Moll! Oh, you mean the witch? And will she--oh, will she help me so they will never know?"
"Yep. And now shut up. Ye air a woman, and was borned for things like this. If ye walks a spell, then I lugs ye across the gully."