"Please let me go home to my daddy," she pleaded faintly. "I'll never come no more, but I can't—I can't talk."
Waldstricker walked toward her menacingly.
"You've got to talk," he gritted, grasping her arm. "You've simply got to answer what the pastor just asked you."
Tess flashed him a look of abhorrence. Oh, how she hated this man!... It seemed to her that he killed for the sake of killing ... tortured for the pure joy of it. She set her teeth hard on her under lip, shaking his hand from her arm.
"I won't talk!" she cried. "You let go of me! See? You touch me again an'—an'—I'll—I'll—"
She paused for some fitting threat. Would no one help her? No, not a friendly face met her searching gaze. If she could get to the door—out into the snow, under God's grey sky! But as if divining her intention, the elders gathered in an accusing squad in front of her. Frederick remained in his chair by the window, apparently oblivious to the tragedy being enacted in his presence.
"I wish ye'd let me go home to my Daddy Skinner," she prayed again.
Her curls fell in a cluster over either shoulder as she sank to her knees in the aisle.
Waldstricker whirled upon Griggs.
"Make her tell us what we must know," he insisted, "or by the God that rules this house, I'll have her sent to some place where incorrigible girls go!"