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,
some vague instinct of the baser male animal remained with them, and
they were moved to a mutually aggressive attitude in the presence of the
female.

One word more, and the opening chapter of a sylvan Iliad might have
begun. But this modern Helen saw it coming, and arrested it with an
inspiration of feminine genius. Without being observed, she disengaged
her knife from her bosom and let it fall as if by accident. It struck
the ground with the point of its keen blade, bounded and rolled between
them. The two men started and looked at each other with a foolish air.
Curson laughed.

"I reckon she can take care of herthelf," he said, extending his hand to
Low. "I'm off. But if I'm wanted SHE'LL know where to find me." Low took
the proffered hand, but neither of the two men looked at Teresa. The
reserve of antagonism once broken, a few words of caution, advice, and
encouragement passed between them, in apparent obliviousness of her
presence or her personal responsibility. As Curson at last nodded
a farewell to her, Low insisted upon accompanying him as far as the
horses, and in another moment she was again alone.

She had saved a quarrel between them at the sacrifice of herself, for
her vanity was still keen enough to feel that this exhibition of her
old weakness had degraded her in their eyes, and, worse, had lost the
respect her late restraint had won from Low. They had treated her like a
child or a crazy woman, perhaps even now were exchanging criticisms
upon her--perhaps pitying her! Yet she had prevented a quarrel, a fight;
possibly the death of either one or the other of these men who despised
her, for none better knew than she the trivial beginning and desperate
end of these encounters. Would they--would Low ever realize it, and
forgive her? Her small, dark hands went up to her eyes and she sank
upon the ground. She looked through tear-vei