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 camp-fire, 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.