"I will," deliberately answered Young.
"Nope, I air goin' to stay here," snapped Tess. "I can fish and live likes I have been doin' till Daddy comes. I promised him I'd stay. I can read the Bible now," she ejaculated, promptly producing the book from under the blankets of the bed. "I's a-readin it every day.... If ye don't believes, ye can listen and see."
She tossed back the curls from her shoulders as she ended emphatically: "I air a goin' to bring Daddy home through this here book—the student says."
Again the terrible jealousy of the handsome student flashed alive in the professor. Tess had opened the Bible to a chapter she had never read before.
"And straightway in the morning," she spelled, "the chief priests—Aw, that ain't no good! Wait till I find about Daddy."
Then suddenly she threw the Bible down upon the floor.
"There air places what says as how Daddy air a comin' home. The student says it air there. I ain't found it yet but I air a-lookin' for it every day. 'Tain't in that place where I just read about them geezers, the priests."
The lawyer stood up. A pain seized him. He would save this ignorant girl in spite of herself, marry her in spite of Frederick Graves. It would be as difficult as scaling the icy mountains, but he would force her to love him more than the whole world.
"You understand," he said shortly, "that these good people have given money toward helping your father come home. It will be some time before the trial will come up, but when it does—I will bring him back to you."
The assurance in his tones brought Tess to his side.