hat over-consciousness a guilty
significance. Yet this was lost in her sudden alarm as her companion,
looking up, uttered an exclamation, and placed his hand upon his
revolver. With a sinking conviction that the climax had come, Teresa
turned her eyes. From the dim aisles beyond, Low was approaching. The
catastrophe seemed complete.

She had barely time to utter an imploring whisper: "In the name of God,
not a word to him." But a change had already come over her companion.
It was no longer a parley with a foolish woman; he had to deal with a
man like himself. As Low's dark face and picturesque figure came
nearer, Mr. Curson's proposed method of dealing with him was made
audible.

"Ith it a mulatto or a Thircuth, or both?" he asked, with affected
anxiety.

Low's Indian phlegm was impervious to such assault. He turned to
Teresa, without apparently noticing her companion. "I turned back," he
said quietly, "as soon as I knew there were strangers here; I thought
you might need me." She noticed for the first time that, in addition to
his rifle, he carried a revolver and hunting-knife in his belt.

"Yeth," returned Curson, with an ineffectual attempt to imitate Low's
phlegm; "but ath I did n't happen to be a sthranger to thith lady,
perhaps it wathn't nethethary, particularly ath I had two friends"--

"Waiting at the edge of the wood with a led horse," interrupted Low,
without addressing him, but apparently continuing his explanation to
Teresa. But she turned to Low with feverish anxiety.

"That's so--he is an old friend"--she gave a quick, imploring glance at
Curson--"an old friend who came to help me away--he is very kind," she
stammered, turning alternately from the one to the other; "but I told
him there was no hurry--at least to-day--that you--were--very
good--too, and would hide me a little longer until your plan--you know
_your_ plan," she added, with a look of beseeching significance to
Low--"could be tried." And then, with a helpless conviction that her
excuses, motives, and emotions were equally and perfectly transparent
to both men, she stopped in a tremble.

"Perhapth it'th jutht ath well, then, that the gentleman came thraight
here, and didn't tackle my two friendth when he pathed them," observed
Curson, half sarcastically.

"I have not passed your friends, nor have I been near them," said Low,
looking at him for the first time, with the same exasperating calm, "or
perhaps I should not be _here_ or they