phlegm; "but ath I didn't happen to be a sthranger to this 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 thtraight
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 THERE. I knew that one man entered
the wood a few moments ago, and that two men and four horses remained
outside."
"That's true," said Teresa to Curson excitedly--"that's true. He knows
all. He can see without looking, hear without listening. He--he--" she
stammered, colored, and stopped.
The two men had faced each other. Curson, after his first good-natured
impulse, had retained no wish to regain Teresa, whom he felt he no
longer loved, and yet who, for that very reason perhaps, had awakened
his chivalrous instincts. Low, equally on his side, was altogether
unconscious of any feeling which might grow into a passion, and prevent
him from letting her go with another if for her own safety. They were
both men of a certain taste and refinement. Yet, in spite of all this,
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