"Come, come, dearest, you alarm yourself without reason. Need I tell you how much I love you--how I have always loved you? Have we not grown up together? What more natural than love like mine?" "But your father--" "He will not object. Why should he? Is he not Oluski's best friend?" "Yes, they are friends, but still--" Warren saw that the girl was nervous and alarmed. He lost no time in reassuring her. "And, after all, dearest, we need not tell them of our love until we are sure of their consent. In the meantime, let us think only of ourselves. You have not yet told me what I longed to hear." "What is that?" "The whispering assurance that your heart is mine?" A painful struggle was evidently taking place in the maiden's breast. Filial duty and self-reproach contended with that feeling, nurtured by the soft blandishments of the scoundrel by her side. In such a contest love is always the victim. This case was not exceptional. Softly murmuring the young man's name, Sansuta hid her head upon his shoulder. His arm enclasped her waist. The confession had been made. The die was cast! They were both startled by a sound heard near. It was like some one sighing. Warren, with the eye of a lynx, searched among the weeds and wild vines, and pierced through the foliage on all sides, but saw nothing. Reassuring her with honeyed words, he then led the girl away from the spot. As soon as they had disappeared a man's form was seen standing upon the place they had last occupied; while another was visible at no great distance from it. He who first made appearance seemed utterly bowed down with grief, whilst a cloud black as night was visible on his brow. It was the chief, Wacora! With an angry and contemptuous action he flung some pieces of money to the other who had followed him, and was the negro Crookleg. "Begone! Wacora may use you for his revenge--you shall not witness his grief. Begone!" The black picked up the coins, grinned hideously and hobbled away. Wacora stood for some time rapt in his own sad thoughts. Then, turning his back upon the old fort, he retraced his steps to Oluski's dwelling. The old chief found but a dull guest in his nephew during that and many succeeding days. He would sit for hours seemingly lost to all that was passing around him. Then starting up suddenly he would stride out of the dwelling with rapid steps, pass out of the town, and on to the adjoining woods, plunging into their depths, to emerge from them hours after, sullen and abstracted as ever! His anxiety to return to his own tribe seemed to have passed away; and day by day he deferred his departure on the plea of some trivial excuse of remaining. He watched Sansuta's movements, however, with the jealous care a mother might exercise over her infant child. Every look, word, and action seemed to command the closest scrutiny.