u'd a-fetched the Cap'n a clip stidder the
letter; leastways, I wouldn't."

The girl shivered and caught her breath.

"If I had hit _him_," she exclaimed vehemently, "I should have gone off
and killed myself."

"_Shoo!_" said Teague in a tone intended to be at once contemptuous and
reassuring, but it was neither the one nor the other.

This conversation gave Teague fresh cause for anxiety. From his point
of view, Sis's newly-developed humility was absolutely alarming, and it
added to his uneasiness. He recognised in her tone a certain shyness
which seemed to appeal to him for protection, and he was profoundly
stirred by it without at all understanding it. With a tact that might
be traced to either instinct or accident, he refrained from questioning
her as to her troubles. He was confused, but watchful. He kept his own
counsel, and had no more conferences with Puss. Perhaps Puss was also
something of a mystery; if so, she was old enough to take care of her
own affairs.

Teague had other talks with Sis--some general, some
half-confidential,--and he finally became aware of the fact that every
subject led to Woodward. He humoured this, awkwardly but earnestly, and
thought he had a clew, but it was a clew that pestered him more than ever.

He turned it round in his mind and brooded over it. Woodward was a man
of fine appearance and winning manners, and Sis, with all the
advantages--comparative advantages merely--that the Gullettsville
Academy had given her, was only a country girl after all. What if----?
Teague turned away from the suspicion in terror. It was a horrible one;
but as often as he put it aside, so often he returned to it. It haunted
him. Turn where he might, go where he would, it pursued him night and
day.

One mild afternoon in the early spring, Mr. Philip Woodward, ex-deputy
marshal, leaned against the railing of Broad Street bridge in the city
of Atlanta, and looked northward to where Kennesaw Mountain rises like
a huge blue billow out of the horizon and lends picturesqueness to the
view. Mr. Woodward was in excellent humour. He had just made up his
mind in regard to a matter that had given him no little trouble. A
wandering prospector, the agent of a company of Boston capitalists, had
told him a few hours before that he would be offered twenty thousand
dollars for his land-lot on Hog Mountain. This was very important, but
it was not of the highest importance. He nodded familiarly to Kennesaw,
and