He was the first to speak.
"Where--did--that--child--come--from?"
There was imperious inquisition in the dark eyes.
His voice had changed, until the deepness of it was terrifying.
Teola came nearer to him. Tessibel dropped down beside the infant.
"I want to know where--that child--came from?" commanded the boy once more. "Whose child is it?"
Tess swung her body round upon the shanty floor, turning cloudy, rebuking eyes upon Teola. She, Tessibel Skinner, crouching squatter-like over Dan Jordan's baby, had sworn never to tell Frederick his sister's secret, and no thought of doing so entered her mind. The minister's daughter must speak the truth. The mother of the babe would answer the question put by the student.
Quickly Tess turned over her great desire for the freedom of her father, followed by the passionate wish to retain the love and prayers of Frederick Graves. If she denied the child, he would turn upon his sister, and the shivering girl would divulge her trouble. It would be the same as breaking her oath. Yet Frederick must not think the child hers. She turned toward Teola again, and seemed about to open her lips, when the expression upon the other girl's face stayed her tongue. It was a mixture of despair, illness and fright. Tessibel imagined she had discovered beneath the pain-drawn face a desire to claim her own. Ah! Teola would gather her babe, that tiny bit of shriveled flesh, into her arms before the whole world. There rose in the squatter's heart a vast respect for Myra Longman, who had taken her child from the beginning of its tiny life, and defied the babbling tongues of the settlement gossips. Teola Graves, although of a different class, was no less a mother--she would do the same. Tessibel sat up, waiting for the confession. Why was the minister's daughter so silent?--why so deathly looking?
"I will be answered," insisted the student. Then, centering his eyes full upon Tess, he added: "Tessibel Skinner, it is--yours!"
Teola's lips were pressed closely together. Spasms of pain drew them down at the corners, making the girl resemble a woman twice her years. With a sudden inspiration, she turned upon her brother.
"Frederick, Frederick," she stammered. "Don't blame her too much. She is only a girl."
A cry escaped from the lips of Frederick; another followed from those of Tess. The minister's daughter was throwing the motherhood of the babe upon her. Teola had branded her squatter savior with a nameless child--a horror from which the student shrank! She saw unbelief rise quickly in his eyes, and saw him draw aside his long rain-coat as it almost touched the box upon the floor. Shrinking disgust of the wriggling, whimpering thing on the rags made Frederick involuntarily reach out his hand to his sister, but his eyes were bent upon Tess.