There was no answer from the tall lawyer. Only one thing was in Deforrest Young's mind--to go to Tessibel Skinner. He gave no thought to the wild night, no care for his own fatigue and hunger. Disdaining another glance at Ebenezer, he whirled to go. Helen's pale face appearing in the doorway made him pause. "Deforrest," she quivered. "Deforrest, dear, oh, don't go out tonight! Stay and let Ebenezer tell you about it, do please! The church has done all it could--it must be all right if the church did it, Forrie." Then Young's wrath broke loose.... "All right? All right?" he thundered. "The church has done all it can, eh? Well, by God!" He turned a livid face from one to the other. "What a cursed outrage!" Waldstricker cried out, horrified. "Man, man, what are you saying!... How _dare_ you provoke the wrath of God!... How dare you question the decision of the church! Besides, I tell you she's a Magdalene. She's been justly punished. I attended to it myself." Then Young saw clearly that the church action had but expressed his brother-in-law's will. He knew his implacable hatred of the squatters and particularly of Tessibel. He recognized that revenge had prompted him. Pushing the protesting elder aside, he ejaculated: "You pious hypocrite! Get out of my way," and was gone. The bitter winter wind nipped at Young as he strode down the steps and battled his way to the stables. Waldstricker's words were pounding at his brain like a hammer. What had they done to Tess? He remembered Ebenezer had said that his vote--his own delegated vote--had turned the tide against his pretty child! He had no mercy for the stumbling horse as he spurred down the long drive, into the public thoroughfare, and thence to the shore road. When he came opposite to his own closed, uninhabited house, he could see by straining his eyes the dusky shadow of the willow trees shrouding the Skinner home. A glimmer of light struggled from the curtained window of the hut. With desperate haste he tied his horse to the fence post. He could scarcely stop to spread over the animal the blanket he'd brought for the purpose. Then as he waded through the snow and rounded the mud cellar a dog's mournful howling, pierced and punctuated by a girl's shrill, heart-broken cry, fell upon his startled ears. In another minute he had flung himself against the shanty door and forced it open. Kennedy's bulldog greeted him, growling, and beyond him, stretched out upon the body of her dead father, lay Tess. Hovering over her, chattering, was Andy Bishop, the dwarf, the condemned murderer of Ebenezer Waldstricker, Sr. CHAPTER XXIX THE VIGIL During Professor Young's instant of hesitation on the threshold, the wind gusted sheets of snow into the Skinner shanty. Quieting the dog by a low-spoken word, Deforrest stepped in and closed the door against the storm. The acrid smoke drawn from the stove by the back-draft, filled the room,--a choking cloud.