Tess of the Storm Country

by Grace Miller White

"The child has separated you?" he said slowly.

"Yep."

"Why?"

"'Cause—'cause—"

All Teola's perfidy rushed over her in a twinkling. All the student's suffering stung her as if she had been struck in the face. She bounded from the bed, possessed of a dark spirit.

"A damn bloke air a-doin' it. It were a oath I took.... Will you go now?—Please!"

"Yes," assented Young. "But it is all a mystery to me. I cannot understand it."

And Tessibel, thinking of Teola, the child, and its dead father, muttered:

"I ain't understandin' it, nuther.... Good-bye."

Transfixed, Tess stood for many minutes where Young had left her. A shadow dropped upon the path. Teola, pale and ill, came toward her, and she did not move.