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 this very situation offered her that gleam of hope which had thrilled her; a hope so wild in its improbability, so degrading in its possibility, that at first she knew not whether despair was not preferable to its shame.  And yet was it unreasonable?  She was no longer passionate; she would be calm and think it out fairly.

She would go to Low at once.  She would find him somewhere—­and even if with that girl, what mattered?—­and she would tell him all.  When he knew that the life and death of his father lay in the scale, would he let his brief, foolish passion for Nellie stand in the way?  Even if he were not influenced by filial affection or mere compassion, would his pride let him stoop to a rivalry with the man who had deserted his youth?  Could he take Dunn’s promised bride, who must have coquetted with him to have brought him to this miserable plight?  Was this like the calm, proud young god she knew?  Yet she had an uneasy instinct that calm, proud young gods and goddesses did things like this, and felt the weakness of her reasoning flush her own conscious cheek.

“Teresa!”

She started.  Dunn was awake, and was gazing at her curiously.

“I was reckoning it was the only square thing for Low to stop this promiscuous picnicking here and marry you out and out.”

“Marry me!” said Teresa in a voice that, with all her efforts, she could not make cynical.

“Yes,” he repeated, “after I’ve married Nellie; tote you down to San Angeles, and there take my name like a man, and give it to you.  Nobody’ll ask after Teresa, sure—­you bet your life.  And if they do, and he can’t stop their jaw, just you call on the old man.  It’s mighty queer, ain’t it, Teresa, to think of your being my daughter-in-law?”