"It may be both the shortest and safest," said Forrester, whose respect for the girl's knowledge of the woods and ability to guide him through them, began to be vastly diminished; "but _this_ is the road Mr. Bruce described. Of this I am positive; and to make the matter still more certain, if need be, here are horse-tracks, fresh, numerous, scarcely washed by the rain, and undoubtedly made by our old companions; whereas _that_ path seems not to have been trodden for a twelve-month." "I will guide you right," faltered Telie, with anxious voice. "My good girl," said the soldier, kindly, but positively, "you must allow me to doubt your ability to do that,--at least, on that path. Here is our road; and we must follow it." He resumed it, as he spoke, and Edith, conquered by his arguments, which seemed decisive, followed him; but looking back, after having proceeded a few steps, she saw the baffled guide still lingering on the rejected path, and wringing her hands with grief and disappointment. "You will not remain behind us?" said Edith, riding back to her: "You see, my cousin is positive: you must surely be mistaken?" "I am _not_ mistaken," said the girl, earnestly; "and, oh! he will repent that ever he took his own way through this forest." "How can that be? What cause have you to say so?" "I do not know," murmured the damsel, in woeful perplexity; "but--but, sometimes, that road is dangerous." "Sometimes all roads are so," said Edith, her patience failing, when she found Telie could give no better reason for her opposition. "Let us continue: my kinsman is waiting us, and we must lose no more time by delay." With these words, she again trotted forward, and Telie, after hesitating a moment, thought fit to follow. But now the animation that had, a few moments before, beamed forth in every look and gesture of the maiden, gave place to dejection of spirits, and even, as Edith thought, to alarm. She seemed as anxious now to linger in the rear as she had been before to preserve a bold position in front. Her eyes wandered timorously from brake to tree, as if in fear lest each should conceal a lurking enemy; and often, as Edith looked back, she was struck with the singularly mournful and distressed expression of her countenance. CHAPTER VIII. These symptoms of anxiety and alarm affected Edith's own spirits; they did more,--they shook her faith in the justice of her kinsman's conclusions. His arguments in relation to the road were, indeed, unanswerable, and Telie had offered none to weaken them. Yet why should she betray such distress, if they were upon the right one? and why, in fact, should she not be supposed to know both the right and the wrong, since she had, as she said, so frequently travelled both?