"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,
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.
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