She closed her lips, fearing to utter the thought.
Frederick shook his head.
"Poor child," he said, with a fatherly air. "It is a dangerous position."
If the case had been placed before Frederick Graves to decide, yesterday he would have hanged Orn Skinner for the murder of the gamekeeper. But to-night—well, to-night his ideas of men and ... of women, too, had changed.
"But he didn't mean it," went on Tess, casting back the unruly hair which shrouded her face in its new state of cleanliness. "He wouldn't have hurt a fly, Daddy Skinner wouldn't."
A whistle from the outside, heard plainly through the beating of the wind, caused Frederick to fling open the door.
"Yes, father," he said loudly, "I'm here. I missed you on the way. Come in a moment if you will."
Tessibel gathered herself more closely into a small human ball than ever. She had feared the minister since the time she had talked off his warts with the wizard words she had learned from a hag living on the ragged rocks.
"What's this," demanded the Dominie, looking sternly at her, and she dropped her eyes in confusion.
"It's Orn Skinner's girl," replied his son. "Skinner is the man who shot Stebbins to-night. You heard Deacon Hall talking about it at the cottage."