"My father," he proceeded more calmly, "left us without any money. I suppose I didn't realize how hard it's been for mother. She's only just told me she'd mortgaged the lake place to Waldstricker and had borrowed money from him. In a way I've been awfully selfish.... I've only thought of you, dear." Of course, now she couldn't tell him that intimate secret! If he knew, he couldn't, he just couldn't do the thing his mother demanded; and she had promised to help him. He had said it was the only way she could be of any service, and her great love rose up and demanded the sacrifice. Tess scarcely recognized her own voice when she next spoke. "Did ye tell Madelene--I mean Miss Waldstricker--ye'd marry her?" she asked. "Well ... yes," stammered Frederick. "And ye--ye--ye kissed 'er?... Oh, say ye didn't kiss 'er!... Ye didn't, did ye?" It was a plea to which Frederick would have given worlds to truthfuly answer, "No." But his conscience, evidently sensitive in small matters, compelled an almost inaudible, "Yes." Raging jealousy, unendurable pain, arose within her. "But ye couldn't--be married--to 'er, Frederick. It ain't possible, it ain't!" "I know I'm married to you," the boy assured her, swiftly. "I'd only be married to her in the eyes of the world!" The eyes of the world, the world through which she had so far walked with proudly lifted head! Her dearly cherished love seemed to be tumbling in ignominious ruins, and that very love had left her defenseless. No one would ever know he belonged to her; that she belonged to him. She would have to creep with bowed head in assumed shame and disgrace even among the squatters. "I'll die," she shivered, thinking of the coming spring. His burning kisses stung her lips, through which his words tumbled one over the other. "You can't!... You shan't die!... Tess, you shan't! I'm only going away for a little while.... You're mine, Tess, do you hear?... You've got to live and love me always! You're mine! Oh, my love! Don't cry like that!..." The crushing strength of his arms hurt her. Suddenly another picture shot across her brain, like a searing rocket. She clung to his arm as if she feared that minute would snatch him from her. Then suppliantly she lifted not only her face, but also her hands. "Oh, she won't be like I air been to ye--like--like--" Frederick heard the anguish in the agonized, girlish voice. "Not like--not like I air been to ye, darlin'. Oh, God, not that!" she cried again. She waited in panting suspense for a fierce denial. Then she struggled frantically in his embrace. All that was alive within her--all the super-vitalized part of her soul--seemed scorched by the picture his significant silence had painted. "Let me go!" she demanded. Frederick tightened his arms about her. "Not yet, not yet! Stay here, rest here, my sweet." But again seeing that image of the small woman in her place, Tess struggled and freed herself.