When Professor Young arrived at the end of the lane near the Skinner's shack, he dismounted, blanketed the horse and hitched him to the fence. The approach to the hut had been shovelled recently and the snow was banked high on either side. He hurried along the path and knocked at the door.
A stir in the shanty told the lawyer the dwarf was seeking the attic. After an instant of quiet, he heard Tessibel's voice.
"Who air there?"
The man's nerves throbbed quick response to the clear young tones that came sure and strong through the shack boards.
"It's I, Tessibel," he answered.
And at his answer the bar raised from its holder and Young opened the door and stepped in. The change from the brilliant glare of the almost horizontal beams of the declining sun on the sparkling snow to the half-light of the closely curtained room, obscured his vision for a moment. But by the time he'd removed his cap and rebarred the door, he could discern the familiar outlines of the shanty kitchen. He saw Tess, half-risen on the cot. She rested on one elbow and stretched the other arm out to him. Her face, wreathed in smiles, shone a cordial welcome. When he'd gone to her and snatched the extended hand in both his own, she bent moist lips and touched the back of the fingers.
Her spontaneous joy brought him a sudden hope that tingled through his blood and warmed it. To see her so well, so sparkling and joyous, lifted his burden of anxiety and warmed in him a glow of profound thanksgiving.
"Tessibel!" he greeted her, relief and yearning compressed into the one word.
It was some time before either spoke. In Tessibel's heart swelled an affection such as she held for no other person. In Young's, in spite of his self-communion on the way, surged the insistent call of the man for his mate, a hopeless longing which might never be satisfied.
"I'm glad it's over, child," he said softly. "My sister told me--"
"I got my baby!" she broke in. "He air over there. Take a peep at 'im."
There was no embarrassment in the bright smile she sent him, no sense of shame in showing her friend the dear little being who had come to her out of the Infinite to be worked for and loved. Young smothered a groan but he turned obediently and went to the chair in which the baby was cradled.
Folding back the blanket, he gazed at the sleeping infant. Manlike, he was experiencing the passionate wish that this small boy were his own. Jealousy, sudden and violent, assailed him. Hardly could he restrain the words of interrogation and denunciation that demanded utterance.