"Safe with my friends--yes!" An awkward silence followed; Teresa broke it gayly: "But your girl, your sweetheart, my benefactor--will SHE let you go ?" "I haven't told her yet," said Low, gravely, "but I don't see why she should object." "Object, indeed!" interrupted Teresa in a high voice and a sudden and utterly gratuitous indignation; "how should she?
I'd like to see her do it!" She accompanied him some distance to the intersection of the trail, where they parted in good spirits.

On the dusty plain without a gale was blowing that rocked the high tree-tops above her, but, tempered and subdued, entered the low aisles with a fluttering breath of morning and a sound like the cooing of doves.

Never had the wood before shown so sweet a sense of security from the turmoil and tempest of the world beyond; never before had an intrusion from the outer life--even in the shape of a letter--seemed so wicked a desecration.

Tempted by the solicitation of air and shade, she lingered, with Low's herbarium slung on her shoulder.
A strange sensation, like a shiver, suddenly passed across her nerves, and left them in a state of rigid tension.

With every sense morbidly acute, with every faculty strained to its utmost, the subtle instincts of Low's woodcraft transformed and possessed her.