"Never mind! Now let me see it, quick. Open it, for my sight is failing. There—thank you—that's all!"
"Take more whiskey," said Teresa, with a strange anxiety creeping over her. "You are faint again."
"Wait! Listen, Teresa—lower—put your ear lower. Listen! I came near killing that chap Low to-day. Wouldn't it have been ridiculous?"
He tried to smile, but his head fell back. He had fainted.
CHAPTER IX.
For the first time in her life Teresa lost her presence of mind in an emergency. She could only sit staring at the helpless man, scarcely conscious of his condition, her mind filled with a sudden prophetic intuition of the significance of his last words. In the light of that new revelation she looked into his pale, haggard face for some resemblance to Low, but in vain. Yet her swift feminine instinct met the objection. "It's the mother's blood that would show," she murmured, "not this man's."
Recovering herself, she began to chafe his hands and temples, and moistened his lips with the spirit. When his respiration returned with a faint color to his cheeks, she pressed his hand eagerly and leaned over him.
"Are you sure?" she asked.