"You need not tell me that I have to forgive her for such a thing as this because of ignorance.... It's too horrible!... I shall never get the sight of that child out of my mind.... That streak of awful, lurid red ... that yapping mouth ... those clawing hands.... God! the disgust I felt.... Teola! Teola! You are ill! Rebecca, come here! Come! Come!"
Together they lifted her from the porch where she had fallen, like a man stabbed with a knife. Gurgling from her lips poured the fresh red blood from the diseased lungs. Teola tried to speak, tried to tell Frederick the truth, but the awful tugging in her chest, and her brother's order that she must not speak, closed her lips upon the good resolution. Added to his command came one from the doctor, who arrived later, that she must not speak one word until he came the next day. The hemorrhage had been brought on by Frederick's description of her child. After her brother had gone, she thought of the hour when she could tell him, but with a thankful feeling in her heart that it had been delayed a little time.
Until the great University bells chimed the hour of midnight, Tessibel waited in the hut for Frederick.
"She hes forgot to tell him," she muttered wearily, pulling the sleepy babe into her arms, "and—and he ain't a-comin'."
CHAPTER XXXIV
Tess saw the minister's family arrive in the small lake steamer, and saw Frederick meet them at the dock. She was watching from between the tatters of the ragged curtain, and noted that Teola had not come down the hill with her brother. This disturbed the squatter, for the baby's mother had looked ill when she left the day before, with the resolution to tell the student her secret. As Minister Graves passed, she saw Frederick looking fondly into his father's face, but he sent no friendly glance toward the hut snuggled under the willow. The watching girl saw that the student's face was haggard, and a thrill swept over her. It was because of his love; he wanted to be with her! But he thought she had been—Tess turned her head from the window, blinded by tears. But for the child in the box! There swept into her mind a text she had learned. "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove." Ah! if she could have such faith, only such a little faith, she could bring the boy back—bring back, through God's goodness, the student she loved.
"I air a-lovin' ye, Jesus," she trembled. "I takes care of the brat till he croaks. Give me back—"