If she dared speak the truth, she could assure him of the goodness of the fisher-girl. But her lips sealed themselves with her soul's consent. She raised her face, giving Tess one look of terror. Reaching out, she touched her brother's arm. "Frederick, come home with me. This is awful--awful!" "I don't want to go home," sobbed the boy, in pitiful abandon. "I didn't know anything could be so hard to bear. And I loved her faith and her character--and her beautiful face.... Oh, I love her, I love her, Teola!" The squatter listened to every passionate word, listened until her face whitened into a despair that settled there and did not vanish. She had not moved from the wooden box, nor ceased pressing the half-clad infant to her breast. Turning, she shot a soul-cutting glance at the other girl, who owed her very life to her. The glance pleaded for the miserable boy by the stool, for the sick babe held close to her heart, and lastly, for herself, her squatter honor, and the powerful love she had for the student brother. From the depths of her eyes came a demand to Teola that she tell the truth. The answer was but a slight negative shake of the proudly-set head, followed by an embarrassment that Teola covered by leaning over her brother, and raising him from the floor. Frederick allowed his sister to lead him by the wooden box, past Tessibel to the door. His eyes traveled back to the open Bible upon the stool, where but a moment since his own dark head had rested. Then he laughed--laughed until the sharp sting of his tones made the fisher-girl grunt in her characteristic way. Striding forward, he snatched up the book, tore off the covers, and in another minute had thrust it through the smoke into the stove. "There goes your faith--your canting trash about your love for the Saviour! I might have known that one of your kind could not rise above the grossness in you. I hope you will be as miserable and as unhappy as I am.... I hope that child will...." Tess stopped him with a cry. She stooped down, and placed the little Dan in his bed without a word. Her anger was gone, and from the waters of bitterness that swept over her a better Tess lived. Her faith in the boy died instantly, and a higher, nobler and greater faith in the crucified Saviour lived instead. She would never tell Frederick that his sister was mother to the little being he had scorned, nor would she as much as utter the name of Dan Jordan. Covering the child tenderly, she faced Frederick Graves without a touch of the awkward girlishness that had hitherto marked her movements. A glorified expression lightened the white face and shone from her eyes. He had taught her a lesson of independence she could not have learned through any other person. Without one glance at the shivering young mother, she walked to the door, and opened it, as she had done that night when he had come first to the hut.