She knew it now! A new element was in the wood--a strange being--another life--another man approaching! She did not even raise her head to look about her, but darted with the precision and fleetness of an arrow in the direction of her tree.

But her feet were arrested, her limbs paralzyed, her very existence suspended, by the sound of a voice:-- "Teresa!" It was a voice that had rung in her ears for the last two years in all phases of intensity, passion, tenderness, and anger; a voice upon whose modulations, rude and unmusical though they were, her heart and soul had hung in transport or anguish.

But it was a chime that had rung its last peal to her senses as she entered the Carquinez Woods, and for the last week had been as dead to her as a voice from the grave.

It was the voice of her lover--Dick Curson!.