"Not less'n I tell Daddy," she breathed back.
Her low denial served only to lock Frederick's arms more tightly around her.
"You've got to come and you mustn't tell him, either," he urged. "You mustn't!"
Succeeding at last in releasing herself, Tessibel sighed. She wanted to be firm with him, to impress lovingly upon him her reason for refusing him; but when he reached forth and folded her again in his arms, that fine firmness gave way. She burst into wild weeping, holding him close as he held her, trying through broken sobs to tell him what was burdening her heart.
"It air like this, dear," she wailed, dismally. "Oh, I want to marry ye more'n anything, but I've never deceived Daddy a bit in all my life. I never done nothin' less'n I told 'im, and, Oh, I want to tell him, Frederick! I do want to tell 'im!"
Frederick hadn't anticipated this resistance on Tessibel's part.
"Tess," he said, almost angrily, "I wouldn't ask you to do anything wrong." Then softening, he pleaded accusingly, "You don't love me well enough to be my wife."
"It'd be wicked," whispered Tess, falteringly.
"It would be right!" cried Frederick, in quick contradiction. "Tess, you will, you will!"
The red curls shook slowly a mute negation.
"I don't believe you love me at all," groaned Frederick. Then taking a long breath, "You want me to be unhappy, I know you do."
She lay limply in his arms while through the sensitive, honest mind raced all the objections against his desire. There were his powerful friends--his college--his-"Yer mother--don't want ye to marry me," she cried, suffering.
"I know it," returned Frederick, promptly. "Still a man can't always please his mother. Why, darling, what kind of a world would this be if mothers picked out their sons' wives? A poor place! I can tell you."
"But yer mother air awful good and loves ye just like Daddy loves me," argued Tessibel, "an' when ye don't do right, everything goes wrong. If Daddy Skinner ain't to know--"
"Nor anybody else," cut in the boy, growing moody after his sharp retort. "I won't have any one know about it. Tessibel, I want this more than anything else in the world. I love you--I love you, and you love me. Then why not? You do love me, don't you?"
"That air why--I do what--ye want me to, I s'pose."
And as the halting words fell from her lips, the student crushed her to him.
"I want you, dear," he breathed warm in her ear, "and it won't have to be a secret over a year, not much over a year, darling, and I'll----I'll----Oh! You will, Tessibel? You will?"