The Secret of the Storm Country

The words were low but distinctly spoken.

"I don't believe it!... I won't!... You shall love me!... I won't have you with Young. ... He can see my boy every day ... be with you hour after hour.... I hate him!"

"You hate him!" Tessibel's eyes burned and flashed with indignation. "When you should be grateful, because he's done everything you should've done.... You've said all you can. You can't make up to us ... the baby and me.... Won't you please go?"

Frederick felt he was losing his reason. The love he'd nursed in secret, the passion that had wasted him away, shook his frail frame. He wouldn't be denied!

"God help me, I won't go!" he gritted, the words carrying on his thought.

With one sweep of his arms, he encircled Tess in a close embrace. She made frantic efforts to free herself, but Frederick, strong under the emotion consuming him, only hugged her closer.

"Let me go!" Tess almost screamed the words. Then, her voice changed to a tense whisper, hoarse with loathing. "How can ... oh, how dare you!"

But she could not protect her face from the searching mouth. Violently, Frederick twisted her around and for one moment his lips fell upon hers. Deep groans came between the kisses he thrust upon her.

A moment later the sound of advancing steps lifted Frederick's face from hers. Muttering an oath, he threw Tess forcibly from him, for there in the path was Ebenezer Waldstricker, about whose sagging lips played a supercilious smile.

"So I was not mistaken," he sneered, looking his brother-in-law full in the face. "If Madelene doesn't care, I do."

"Well?" growled Frederick. "You've found me here, now do what you cursed want to, I don't care."

"Perhaps you'll care before I finish," said the elder grimly, and he included the girl in his baleful glare. "I think you both will."

Tessibel's mind flew to Boy. What could these two men do to her darling?

She went forward toward Waldstricker, her eyes raised appealingly to his.

"Won't you make Mr.... Mr. Graves keep away?" she petitioned. "I don't want him here."

"Yes, it looked, when I came around the corner, as if you didn't want him, miss," scoffed the elder. Then he laughed, and the laugh cut the throbbing girl to the quick. "Very much as if you wanted him to go.... Now, then, sir, what's this girl to you?"

"I'm nothing to him, Mr. Waldstricker," she asserted, without giving Frederick a chance to speak.

Graves still felt that maddening passion, that demand for his own.

"She lies," he said in low tones.

Tess turned to him passionately.