unctory sympathy.

"That be d----d," he responded quickly. "Jutht thay you'll come, Tita,
and"--

She stopped his half-spoken sentence with a negative gesture. "You
don't understand. I shall stay here."

"But even if they don't theek you here, you can't live here forever.
The friend that you wrote about who wath tho good to you, you know,
can't keep you here alwayth; and are you thure you can alwayth trutht
her?"

"It isn't a woman; it's a man." She stopped short, and colored to the
line of her forehead. "Who said it was a woman?" she continued
fiercely, as if to cover her confusion with a burst of gratuitous
anger. "Is that another of your lies?"

Curson's lips, which for a moment had completely lost their smile, were
now drawn together in a prolonged whistle. He gazed curiously at her
gown, at her hat, at the bow of bright ribbon that tied her black hair,
and said, "Ah!"

"A poor man who has kept my secret," she went on hurriedly--"a man as
friendless and lonely as myself. Yes," disregarding Curson's cynical
smile, "a man who has shared everything"--

"Naturally," suggested Curson.

"And turned himself out of his only shelter to give me a roof and
covering," she continued mechanically, struggling with the new and
horrible fancy that his words awakened.

"And thlept every night at Indian Thpring to save your reputation,"
said Curson. "Of courthe."

Teresa turned very white. Curson was prepared for an outburst of
fury--perhaps even another attack. But the crushed and beaten woman
only gazed at him with frightened and imploring eyes. "For God's sake,
Dick, don't say that!"

The amiable cynic was staggered. His good-humor and a certain
chivalrous instinct he could not repress got the better of him. He
shrugged his shoulders. "What I thay, and what you _do_, Teretha,
needn't make us quarrel. I've no claim on you--I know it. Only"--a
vivid sense of the ridiculous, powerful in men of his stamp, completed
her victory--"only don't thay anything about my coming down here to cut
you out from the--the--_the sheriff_." He gave utterance to a short but
unaffected laugh, made a slight grimace, and turned to go.

Teresa did not join in his mirth. Awkward as it would have been if he
had taken a severer view of the subject, she was mortified even amidst
her fears and embarrassment at his levity. Just as she had become
convinced that his jealousy had made her over-conscious, his apparent
good-humored indifference gave t