on't you
remember?"

"Did I?"

"You did. Is it not so?"

He smiled faintly. "I reckon."

She held her breath in expectation. But only the ludicrousness of the
discovery seemed paramount to his weakened faculties. "Isn't it just
about the ridiculousest thing all round?" he said, with a feeble
chuckle. "First YOU nearly kill me before you know I am Low's father;
then I'm just spoilin' to kill him before I know he's my son; then that
god-forsaken fool Jack Brace mistakes you for Nellie and Nellie for you.
Ain't it just the biggest thing for the boys to get hold of? But we must
keep it dark until after I marry Nellie, don't you see? Then we'll have
a good time all round, and I'll stand the drinks. Think of it, Teresha!
You don' no me, I do' no you, nobody knowsh anybody elsh. I try kill
Lo'. Lo' wants kill Nellie. No thath no ri--'" but the potent liquor,
overtaking his exhausted senses, thickened, impeded, and at last stopped
his speech. His head slipped to her shoulder, and he became once more
unconscious.

Teresa breathed again. In that brief moment she had abandoned herself to
a wild inspiration of hope which she could scarcely define. Not that it
was entirely a wild inspiration; she tried to reason calmly. What if she
revealed the truth to him? What if she told the wretched man before her
that she had deceived him; that she had overheard his conversation with
Brace; that she had stolen Brace's horse to bring Low warning; that,
failing to find Low in his accustomed haunts, or at the campfire, she
had left a note for him pinned to the herbarium, imploring him to fly
with his companion from the danger that was coming; and that, remaining
on watch, she had seen them both--Brace and Dunn--approaching, and had
prepared to meet them at the cabin? Would this miserable and
maddened man understand her self-abnegation? Would he forgive Low and
Nellie?--she did not ask for herself. Or would the revelation turn his
brain, if it did not kill him outright? She looked at the sunken orbits
of his eyes and hectic on his cheek, and shuddered.

Why was this added to the agony she already suffered? She had been
willing to stand between them with her life, her liberty, and even--the
hot blood dyed her cheek at the thought--with the added shame of being
thought the cast-off mistress of that man's son. Yet all this she had
taken upon herself in expiation of something--she knew not clearly what;
no, for nothing--only for HIM. And yet t