Martin Morley slept, in the clean loft over Marcia Lowe's living-room. There was a good warm bed there, and before he had gone up the ladder to his much-needed rest, the little doctor had fed him and given him hot coffee to drink.
"You are safe," she had comforted him. "God has been good to you, Martin Morley. Molly is with her mother and, sad as it is, we can do nothing more for her. Forget it all, and to-morrow you and I will consider the future."
So Martin slept and slept, and the front door of the cabin was kept closed and locked.
Refreshed and humble, Martin, on the evening of the following day, cautiously crept down the ladder from his loft-chamber and tapped upon the outer door of the cabin.
It was a very smiling and trim little body that welcomed him and bade him sit down to a table laid for an evening meal.
"You see I've waited for you, Mr. Morley; we have a slice of ham, some hot biscuits, and baked potatoes. There's a loaf of cake, too, and coffee and a try at a pudding for which my mother used to be famous."
Every nerve of Martin's starved stomach thrilled, but his eyes did not meet Marcia Lowe's.
"You are feeling better, Martin Morley?"
"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am."
"Well, then I want you to share my meal."
"I—I ain't worthy, ma'am. I can never pay you, ma'am, for what you've done and meant to me. I'm ready to go now, ma'am."
"Where, Martin Morley?" The little doctor was pouring the coffee, and the odour made Morley dizzy with longing.
"I ain't just settled in my mind as to that, ma'am. The world's big, beyond The Hollow."
"Too big for you, Mr. Morley, until you are yourself—your best self again. And you can pay me—I have my bill ready."
Martin eyed her furtively and tried to steady his hand as he reached out for the plate of savoury food she was passing to him. They ate silently for a while, then Marcia Lowe tried to cheer him by scraps of gossip that had drifted to her during the day.
"They think you have gone with Teale," she said with a little laugh; "the idea of your flying off in that company! Have another potato, Mr. Morley; the staying power of a baked potato is simply marvellous."
When the meal was finished and the dishes put away, Marcia Lowe faced her gloomy guest with deep, serious eyes.
"You feel you owe me something, Mr. Morley?" she asked. They were sitting opposite each other by the hearth; a pouring rain dashed against the window and a rising wind howled through the trees. A sleek yellow cat turned around two or three times and then settled comfortably at Marcia Lowe's feet and purred happily.
"I do that, mum."
"You are—willing to do something for me—for Sandy, but most of all for yourself?"
Morley was becoming accustomed to the little doctor's quaint way of putting questions, but her manner still puzzled him.
"Yes, ma'am," he answered confusedly.
"Then listen, Martin Morley. I want to save you, first of all for yourself—next for that boy of yours, who, I somehow feel confident, will come back to honour us all. I believe I can do what I have in mind—there is a little risk, very little, but will you run it for me?"
Morley's thin face twitched. Many emotions swayed him. Doubt, suspicion, superstition, the ingrained revolt of sex—the male resenting this power of the female—all, all held part in Morley's mind, weakened by trouble and malnutrition, but above all was the innate yearning to prove himself for Sandy. Martin had the supreme instinct of parenthood.
"You know you were willing to die for him, Mr. Morley. Are you not willing to run the chance of a better, cleaner life?"
Marcia Lowe was bending forward now, her face radiant and inspired—she looked young, lovely and compassionate.
"I—I—don't follow you, ma'am." Poor Martin was caught in the toils of the enthusiast.
"Then listen. I have studied and—conquered to a certain extent—a great and noble help for humanity—but I am hampered in my work because I am a woman. Oh! no one—no man can understand how terrible it is for us women to look beyond the man and woman part of life and seehuman beingsneeding us, crying out to us, and for us, to realize that often we might help, in our own way best of all—if only something, over which we have no control, did not bar us. You see, men have no right to deprive human beings of any assistance the world can give. If we women tell men of our hopes and our beliefs, they accept or decline as they think best—and so much is lost! Why, I have been pleading with The Forge doctor ever since I came, to work with me in doing what I long to do, and he will not—he laughs! I am not rich enough or important enough to bring a big doctor from my home to do this thing for you, all that I could do alone. So here I stand with, I solemnly believe, a precious gift and I—I—cannot give it to you because—you won't trust a woman!"
Marcia Lowe was talking far and beyond Morley; he stared bewildered at her, but something within himself was reaching out and touching, with soul-intensity, the tragic appeal from the little woman opposite.
"Uncle Theodore Starr came here because he loved his kind and felt that you all needed him most. Because you had no choice, he believed you would accept him. Can you remember how he worked among you? served you and died for you?"
"I—do, mum!" An old sense of gratitude gave force to the words.
"Well, I feel as he did, only I want to mend your poor, sick bodies; make you strong enough to want to help yourselves like men and women! I want you to know that you havesouls."
But now Martin was lost again. The stare settled on his face and only the hypnotism of the woman across the hearth guided him. Marcia Lowe saw this, and grew desperate.
"Oh! dear, what shall I do?" she cried helplessly. "Can I say anything that will make you understand? The thing I have is safe and sure. It might go wrong with you—onlymight—but I want, I must have, your consent. Just suppose it did go wrong with you, but that you knew it would help hundreds of others—would you be willing to try?"
Morley did not attempt an answer.
"Let me put it another way!" and now the little doctor arose and stood in the full glow of the fire, while the roar of the wind and the flaring of the red light filled the room with sound and colour. The slim, pale woman looked very weak and small to be the leading actor in this tragic drama of the hills, and the big, stupidly staring man opposite seemed very insignificant as a great sacrifice.
"See, I will put it this way. They call me the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady because—I give them all a little drink of water and it makes them better! I made the little Hope boy well; ask Liza, she knows. I gave your Sandy a cup of cold water and it helped his throat—I could have helped him more, poor boy, if he had not gone away. Martin Morley, I want to giveyoua cup of cold water—oh! please trust me! You must do what I ask you to do—just for one little week. It will be hard, but I will watch with you and share every suffering hour. I will nurse you and care for you as a daughter might, and then, at the end, I believe as truly as God hears me, that you win stand straight and take your place—yourplace—among men!"
"A charm?" Morley panted, for he was quite overcome by the power exerted over him.
Full of zeal and trust, seizing upon anything to gain her end, Marcia Lowe replied:
"Exactly—a charm! See!" and suddenly she turned to the closet beside the chimney-place; taking out a small bottle she held it up to the light with a glow of reverence upon her uplifted face. "Fifteen tiny grains of this!"
Morley was fascinated.
"Fifteen grains," he repeated, like a man talking in his sleep—"fifteen grains!"
"Yes, yes! and then you must have—faith! You know you alwaysmusthave faith in charms."
Morley assented to this.
"Will—you—will you try?"
"I—reckon I will, mum!"
"Will you promise? Oh! If I have ever done anything to make you grateful, promise! promise!"
"I promise!"
From that night the cure began. Shut away against the mountain-world, favoured by one of the hill storms, prolonged and depressing, the little doctor tested her charm. She was nurse and companion as well as physician. Willing to do battle and take the consequences for the faith that was in her, she wrestled with her problem. Men had proven the thing elsewhere—why not she, here among her dead uncle's people?
"You cannot eat until I tell you to, Martin Morley," she said.
For the first day or so the weakened man, used to deprivation, made no demur; then his haggard face and imploring eyes pleaded for food, and on the third day he asked for it, cried for it like a starving child. This wrung Marcia Lowe's heart.
"Oh! we women," she whispered to herself scornfully; "I declare I must put a watch upon myself or I will find myself going to the cupboard and betraying the faith of Doctor Marcia Lowe!"
Then she resorted to subterfuge, and playfully bullied poor Morley.
"See! If I do not eat, can you not keep me company? What manners have you, Martin Morley, to eat while a lady starves?"
The wretched fellow tried to smile, but wept instead.
After that, Marcia Lowe rarely left the room; never unless Morley slept. She stole like a thief to her closet and ate her food when, and as she could.
"It's the nurse of Martin Morley who refreshes herself," she thought comfortingly.
It was on the fifth evening of the battle with the deadly foe of the mountain poor-whites, that Marcia Lowe heard a knock upon her cabin door. So alone and absorbed had she been for the past few days that a demand from the outer world startled and annoyed her. Martin was sleeping—he lay in the lean-to chamber—so on tiptoe the little doctor went to answer the summons.
The storm had passed unnoticed by Marcia Lowe, and a bright starry heaven lay behind the tall figure of Tod Greeley on the doorstep.
"Oh! Come in, come in!" whispered Marcia—and oddly enough she felt a glow of relief and welcome. Greeley came in and grimly took a chair by the cheerful fire on the ashless hearth.
"I've come on a mighty unpleasant errand, ma'am," he said; "and I ain't one as can pass around sweets before the bitters."
All the way to Trouble Neck Greeley had arranged this speech, and the medical flavour of it had given him courage.
"You're very kind to come yourself, Mr. Greeley," Marcia Lowe was smiling; "another might not have been so welcome. And now for the bitter! I'll gulp it bravely, for I like sweets better."
She sat down in her own rough little rocker, and swayed calmly to and fro.
"Well, mum, the County Club, in session down to the store, delegated me to call on you. Leastway, I done told them I reckoned no one elsebutme should come first!"
"Thank you again, Mr. Greeley."
"Since the raid on Teale's——" Tod drawled uncomfortably—"there's them as is scared. I ain't standing up or setting down for them Speak Easies back o' The Hollow, but business is business, and no man knows who's going to get struck so long as——" Greeley glanced cautiously about—"so long as—you're hiding what youarehiding!"
For a moment Marcia Lowe tried to readjust her thoughts and get them into some sort of connection; finally she laughed, laughed so long and so noiselessly that Greeley grew nervous.
"Lord, ma'am!" he faltered, "you can't afford to take it that-er-way lest you've got your placefullof 'em!"
"Oh! Mr. Greeley. They think, the club thinks I have something to do with the raid? Why I did not know, until some one told me, that there had been one. Come, I want you to see what I am hiding!"
She motioned her guest to the doorway of the lean-to.
"Look!" she whispered.
For a moment Greeley did not recognize the wan, helpless creature huddled on the bed; so small, so pitiful was the unconscious man that he seemed a stranger. Then in amaze and half terror, Tod breathed:
"Mart Morley! What you—doing—to—him?"
Marcia Lowe's eyes were full of tears, and her trembling lips were hardly able to frame the words:
"I'm helping him to lead his people back to their heritage! Oh! you do not understand; but he and I—with God on our side, are fighting—just plain fighting a—a worm!"
At that moment Morley stirred and opened his hollow, starving eyes.
"Food," he gasped in a voice Greeley never forgot; "God-a'mighty—food!"
Then Greeley beheld a miracle. He saw Marcia Lowe run to the fire in the living-room and bring to the bedside of the sick man a tiny kettle of some smooth liquid; he saw her dip a spoon in and then hold it to the lips of Morley. She had forgotten Greeley; forgotten all but the man upon the bed.
"Slowly, slowly!" she whispered; "we've won! we've won! There! there! It's going to be all right from now on—the charm's worked!"
Awed and afraid, Greeley tiptoed from the house, and all the way back to the waiting County Club he muttered like a half-wit:
"Fighting a worm! Fighting a worm!"
The day that civilization and education took Sandy Morley into its keeping, saw Cynthia Walden astride Crothers' mule jogging down The Way to the factory. Sandy, arrayed in immaculate attire, was borne to his school among the New Hampshire hills by train and coach. He was desperately lonely; thoroughly frightened, but he was well in body; healthfully sustained by good food, and he had so much money in his pockets that he was in deadly fear of being waylaid and robbed. Cynthia, on the contrary, was dressed in a shabby gingham gown freshly laundried and stiffly starched, but much mended, and her pocket was guiltless of money. She had no fear of being attacked, so she sang sweetly and joyously as she bobbed about getting her blood circulating, for the old coat and hood she wore were pitifully inadequate for the crisp weather. Cynthia was young and hope led her on; besides, she had just deposited a most poetic letter to Sandy in the hole of the tree. Old Sally Taber had smoothed the problem of Stoneledge for the time being, and there was going to be plenty of money now that Crothers had opened the way for Cynthia to employ her talents!
Cynthia tried the bird-note Sandy had conquered so successfully.
"Why don't we-all have birds in winter 'stead of summer?" babbled Madam Bubble from her mule; "and moons on dark nights, and hot suns at Christmas?" Then she laughed, and the laugh left the dear, slow smile as a reminder after the joyous sound died away.
"The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady is in the church," Cynthia exclaimed suddenly as she neared Theodore Starr's small edifice from whose chimney smoke was rising. Then she kicked the fat sides of her mule and turned her supercilious head aside in order to escape Marcia Lowe's eyes, were they scanning The Way.
"It's right noble of her to take care of Sandy's father," the just mind granted; "but Aunt Ann and I—must do without her!"
A touch of yearning lay in the words. Cynthia needed what Marcia Lowe might mean to her, and only loyalty to Ann Walden restrained her.
But Marcia Lowe did not see Cynthia pass. For months now, through the doors and unbarred windows, the light and air had come into the little church, and the spirit of Theodore Starr had, in some subtle manner, been permitted to live again. People dropped in occasionally and sat and thought of the dead parson. Sometimes Marcia Lowe welcomed them and coaxed them to tell her of her dear uncle. She always sat in what she called "the minister's pew," and there were times in her lonely detached life when she seemed to see the calm, fine face looking down at her from the poor pulpit. He never looked the weak man who was afraid of Ann Walden; to his loving niece he was ever the strong brother-of-men who had died while serving them not worthy of him! As Cynthia rode by, Marcia was building a fire in the drum stove, lately placed in the church, and singing, prayerfully, a favourite hymn.
"Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows,The solemn hush of Nature newly born;Alone with Thee in breathless adoration,In the calm dew and freshness of the dawn.
"So shall it be at last, in that bright morningWhen the soul waketh and life's shadows flee."
The fire responded and outside the shadows of the dark trees of The Way enshrouded Cynthia as she hurried on.
That day in the factory was the hardest day of Cynthia's life. To a young girl born in freedom, be that freedom of the meanest, the confinement and authority were deadly. Then, too, to witness the utilization of the baby-things that were mere cogs in the machinery of Crothers' business, hurt the mother-heart of the girl cruelly. At the noon hour she tried to make the sad little creatures play—but they had forgotten how, if they ever knew; they, stared at her with wondering eyes; ate all of her lunch she offered, and shivered in their thin clothes by the wretched fire in a shed provided for their leisure time.
"Oh, Sandy, Sandy," murmured Cynthia as she looked about, "I'll help you get them away from here some day."
A new fear and hate of Crothers grew in her heart as she impotently suffered for the children, but Crothers was as gentle and kind to her as any wise and considerate father could have been. He was patient with her bungling and errors; he did not turn her off to his clerks for instruction, he spent his own time upon her. Every moment that he was near her Cynthia trembled, and when he accidentally touched her she recoiled sharply. Crothers noticed this, and at first it angered him; then caused him much amusement. Unconsciously the girl was fanning into sudden and violent flame that which might have slumbered on for months. Before the end of the first week Crothers had noticed how lovely Cynthia's shining braids were as they twined around her pretty, bent head. His eyes grew thoughtful as he noted the lines of the softly rounded shoulders and dainty girlish bosom. The little dent in the back of the slim neck was like a dimple and even the small roughened hands were shapely and beautiful.
"How old are you, little miss?" Crothers asked her the third day of her business life, and Cynthia fearing that her youth might prove an obstacle answered blindly:
"Going on—fourteen!" She looked more, for her South, in spite of all her meagre upbringing, had developed her rapidly. Crothers smiled indulgently.
When Saturday night came four dollars was handed to Cynthia by Crothers himself.
"It was to be three," she said, holding the money toward him. He took the fingers in his, closed them over the bills, and said:
"Just a little present for a nice little girl who has tried so hard to be good."
Cynthia drew back and her eyes flashed dangerously.
"I do not want it!" she said quickly, and flung a dollar on the desk. "I only want what is mine!" After she had gone Crothers swore a little; then laughed. The laugh was more evil than the oath, but no one was there to hear.
Cynthia had no one to speak to about her fear and loathing of Crothers. Besides, she had entered upon her career and dared not turn back. She did not understand herself, nor the man who was her employer; she did not understand conditions nor the yearnings that possessed her; she only knew that she must fight against becoming a poor white, and learn to overcome the limitations of her birth, and Crothers seemed her only chance. On the long rides to and from the factory she thought often of her poor mother and wondered about her bad father. She wished she had learned more about them while Ann Walden was capable of telling her. The time was past now when the mistress of Stoneledge could impart any reliable information to the girl. When the weather permitted the old woman paced the upper balcony crooning to the hills, and as cold and storm shut her inside she seemed only happy in the library. So Sally Taber, reinforced by the money which supposedly she so miraculously had saved, had the room made habitable. Mason Hope was coaxed into giving some of his valuable time to the repairing and by mid-winter the place was comfortable.
"Ole miss is jes' a plain moon-chile now," Sally confided to Marcia Lowe at one of their private conferences; "it's right silly to oppose her."
"Yes, give her everything you can, Sally, and oh! if she ever has flashes of reason get her to talk and—remember what she says!"
"Deed and deed I will," promised Sally. "And if she ever do get her wits back it will be in dat ole libr'y-room. She acts right human thar at times."
Marcia Lowe was sorely puzzled about Cynthia those days. If she were only sure that Ann Walden would never recover her reason she would take her chances with the girl and plead Theodore Starr's cause, but with no actual proof, and with Ann Walden's evident past instruction to Cynthia, she hesitated to make her own claims. Then, too, there were times when doubt rose in her mind, not as to her uncle, but Cynthia's parentage. There might never have been a child born to Queenie Walden. The Hollow story of adoption might be true after all. That would have accounted for old Miss Walden's bitter resentment. It was all very difficult and confusing, but in the meantime she could love the girl, and do, indirectly, for her what personally she could not.
Oftener and oftener the little doctor went to the church by The Way and "sat with Uncle Theodore," as she put it. It was less lonely there; the store was near by and the passers-by were becoming more friendly. Occasionally they dropped in. Tod Greeley and old Townley more than the others, and chatted sociably. Marcia Lowe had much to be grateful for, and when, one morning two weeks after Morley had been pronounced cured by his faithful doctor-nurse, he came to her, as she sat in the church, and said quietly:
"Miss Lowe, I'm going up yon——" pointing to his own cabin, seen now between the bare trees, "to straighten it up a bit," she wept as if her heart would break. Martin did not witness the outbreak; he had set forth upon his task. Marcia Lowe was alone and upon her knees.
"Dear God!" she repeated over and over; "dear God! he is saved. He'll open the way to others."
Martin Morley went upon his new course unheeded for a time, for a tragic happening to Cynthia and a calamity to the community threw the little doctor and many others into chaos.
Cynthia had been a month in Crothers' factory, when one late afternoon he said to her:
"Little miss, could you bide at The Forge tonight?" Cynthia started back and looked at him.
"It's this-er-way; you've become mighty helpful to me and I've got a batch of letters to get off by the morning's mail. It looks like there is going to be snow, too, and I'd hate to keep you late and then send you toting home after dark. Now if you can stop over and work 'long o' me till—say ten o'clock, we can finish the work and I'll set you down safe and sound at my boarding-house for a good night's rest."
Cynthia gave her usual shudder and sought about for an excuse. She knew Crothers' boarding-house keeper; knew her to be a decent soul who had more than once, lately, brought a hot meal to her at midday when she brought Crothers'. There was snow in the air, too, and a late ride through the woods at night was almost more awful than to stay at the factory.
"They-all will worry," she faltered in her pretty, slow way.
"I sent word by Hope's boys," Crothers reassured her, "they've just gone. I knew I could depend upon you."
Cynthia struggled to control herself, and finally gave her smile and shrugged her shoulders.
The mistress of the boarding-house brought to the factory a piping hot supper for two at seven o'clock. She seemed to know all about Cynthia's proposed stay, and showed no sign of misunderstanding it.
"You better fotch the chile in 'bout nine," she suggested to Crothers as she went out; "she do look clean beat now. Quality don't last out at work like trash do; they certainly do tucker out sooner."
Crothers bade the garrulous woman a pleasant good night, and then set himself busily to the task of mastering a pile of correspondence on his desk. Cynthia went to the little table by the window that served as her writing-desk and asked quietly what she should do. Crothers handed her a list of names and a package of envelopes and told her to address them. The old clock on the wall ticked away comfortably; the warmth and the late hearty meal combined to drive away fear and apprehension of, she knew not what, and Cynthia was soon absorbed in the task set her.
Presently the kerosene lamp on her table flickered and went out; then glancing over at Crothers' back she asked timidly:
"Please, may I sit by your desk, sir? The light's failed."
Crothers turned about and smiled at the pale little creature in the shadows.
"Come right along, little miss! Here, let me fetch your chair. There, now!"
Seated at the end of the flat-topped desk, Cynthia tried to resume her work, but the unrest of the early afternoon possessed her and she felt a tear roll down her cheek—the cheek nearest the man at her left side.
What happened after that Cynthia never could tell clearly; she only knew that a large, hot hand wiped the tear away and a burning kiss fell upon her cheek!
Horrified, and shaking with fear, the girl sprang to her feet and reached the opposite side of the desk near the window looking out toward The Way. She had but one thought: she would break the window and make a dash for safety! But Crothers was upon his feet also. He did not offer to come nearer, but he leaned over the desk and said quietly:
"What you afraid of, lil' girl?"
"You!" The word was like a hiss.
"Of me? Can't you give me a kiss? I don't want to hurt you; I'm your best friend; why, see here, I'll give you a right smart new coat and hat and dress—for a kiss; just a little kiss."
Cynthia's eyes seemed fastened to the smiling, cruel face, but she did not tremble now. Calmly, clearly, she was thinking what she could take with which to defend herself.
"Just—one—more—kiss—lil' girl," and now Crothers was coming around the corner of the desk. It seemed like some fearful nightmare, but Cynthia was ready!
"Just one—more—kiss right on the pretty mouth!" The large, white hands were extended and the teeth showed through the red lips. At that instant Cynthia seized the lighted lamp which stood near, and with desperate strength flung it toward the reaching body! There was a crash, a curse, a fall, and then the room was blotted out by darkness.
For a moment there was a deathlike stillness and in it the girl crept toward the door, unfastened it and gained the open. There were feathery snowflakes in the air and they touched Cynthia's face like holy kisses, wiping away the evil one that had burned there but a moment before. Groping and running she reached The Way and, from behind a tree, paused to take breath. Never had she felt more self-possessed or secure; her mind was clear and sane. If Crothers came out, she could outstrip him in a race for the boarding-house, and she meant to go to the boarding-house that night! Something within her guided her now; something was protecting her and saving her—it was the Woman Cynthia was by and by to be!
As the girl by the tree panted and reasoned, she saw, from the factory window—the window of Crothers' office—a darting tongue of light; another followed and in a moment the glass was ruddy—and smoke was issuing from the door left open when she ran out.
"The place is on fire!" Then—"why does he not come out?"
For a moment only a madness seized Cynthia while hate and revenge had their way:
"Let him die!" she muttered, setting her teeth close and gripping her hands; "let him!"
But even as the words were spoken she was running back to the factory. She rushed into the smoke-filled hallway and, by the light of the fire, she saw Crothers lying full length where he had fallen. The flames were feasting on the rug by the desk and the unconscious man's head lay upon that rug!
Cynthia knelt beside Crothers and called his name, but the ugly smiling lips made no motion of reply. Then she seized him under the arms and frantically tugged and tugged at the heavy body. The flames were almost at her feet, the wool of the carpet had caught first and the licking tongues followed the burden she bore, greedily. At last she was at the door; outside, and the safe, black night surrounded them! She lay Crothers down and breathed fast and hard. The snowflakes were larger; thicker now, and there was a harshness in their touch.
Presently Cynthia began to call louder and louder, and the fire gaining power lighted the night and crackled merrily.
"Help! help! help!"
And help came. First on the scene were the boarding-house mistress and her sons; then followed others of The Forge, and soon a group had gathered and were aimlessly running about, giving orders and foolishly bemoaning the havoc that was spreading.
Quite calm and uncaring Cynthia answered the questions put to her. She defended herself without once realizing that she was doing so.
"Crothers got up suddenly—and fell!" she said to the mistress of the boarding-house who was working over the man on the ground, bathing his face with snow and slapping his hands with her own rough ones.
"Yes, the lamp overturned—and the fire was so quick!"
"Yes, I could not let Crothers die; I had to pull him out!"
Then a man near by said:
"Plucky little devil." The words rang in Cynthia's ears strangely. Why did they praise her? What had she done? She wanted Crothers to die. Now that he was out of the fire, she did not want to see his eyes open again, and yet she was straining her own to get the first sign in his. Of a sudden Crothers looked full at her wonderingly, dazedly, and at that sight Cynthia fled, and, in the confusion, no one missed her. She did not go to the shed for her mule, she made for The Way uncloaked and unhooded and ran for her life until, overcome by weariness, she paused to take breath. Looking back she saw only a dull glow where the factory had stood and black smoke was rolling thick up into the pure, falling snow.
It was fear of Man that haunted Cynthia as she toiled up the hillside; Man as he had loomed first on her horizon, cruel, seeking, and selfish. When the hard branches of the tree touched her she stifled a scream, for they felt like the demanding hands of Man; when a hungry animal darted across her path she recoiled, remembering another animal with face and form of Man.
It was three o'clock in the morning when Cynthia left The Forge—though how the hours had passed from nine till three she was never able to explain;—it was eight o'clock when she passed Andrew Townley's cabin and saw smoke curling from his chimney. Sensation was slowly returning to her; she felt cold, weak, and hungry, but with the senses aroused she realized that she could not go home! She could not face Ann Walden's vacant stare, or Sally Taber's coarse cheerfulness. In all her world she was alone, alone! But even as she thought this her weary feet were bearing her to Theodore Starr's little church which was never locked by day or night. She reached the door at last, and with all her remaining strength pushed it open and staggered up to where the steps led to the small raised altar. Dropping down she bent her aching head upon her arm and sobbed:
"Father! Mother!" simply because in all God's world no other words came to her relief.
Theodore Starr's little daughter had come to him quite naturally in her first great sorrow!
And there Marcia Lowe found her. Fortunately the little doctor went early to the church, for she had conceived of a Christmas such as The Hollow had never known, and it seemed fitting that Theodore Starr should be the host!
Quite merrily she entered and went directly to the stove to start a fire. As she drew near, the outstretched form of Cynthia Walden caught her eyes and she cried aloud in astonishment and fright. At first she thought the girl was frozen to death, for she lay so still and her thin clothing was evidence of the danger run.
"Dear heart! dear heart!" whispered Miss Lowe, overcoming her desire to take the girl in her arms until she had made a fire. Once the genial heat began to spread Marcia Lowe set a kettle of water on the stove and then gave her maternal instincts full play. She gathered the slight form close and kissed again and again the thin oval cheek and close shut mouth.
"Poor little, little girl!"
The warmth and sound stole into Cynthia's far place and summoned her back. Her first look was full of terror; her second was one of unearthly joyousness, and then because the woman of Cynthia had no need to battle longer for her, the child made its claims and, clinging and sobbing to the little doctor she moaned again and again:
"I am so afraid; so afraid!"
It was long before Miss Lowe could quiet her. She wrapped her heavy coat about her and forced some drops of hot water between the stiff, chilled lips. Then she bathed the face and hands gently with water cooled with snow, murmuring tenderly meanwhile:
"Dear little girl; poor little Cynthia! It's all right now."
When the girl was soothed and comforted she went to the store to buy food—anything to be had, for she knew instinctively that whatever was the cause, Cynthia had tasted no food that day.
"Come back soon!" moaned the girl crouching by the stove, "I am so afraid."
After she had eaten some stale crackers, soaked in diluted condensed milk, Cynthia sat up, still and pale, and faced Marcia Lowe dumbly, imploringly.
"Can you tell me, little Cyn?"
"No!" The voice was distant and monotonous.
"But something has happened, dear. I want to help you."
"The factory—is burned down!" A shudder ran over the rigid young figure. Marcia Lowe saw that she might hope to win her way if she did not startle the benumbed mind.
"Were you hurt, dear? Was any one hurt? When did it happen? How did you hear?"
After each question Marcia waited, and then put another. Still that fixed, steady gaze.
"I—I was there. It was night. He—he kissed me—don't look like that! look away! your eyes hurt me!"
Marcia came closer and took the girl in her arms.
"Now, darling," she whispered, "close your eyes and I'll close mine—there are only you and I and—God here."
"He—he kissed me, Crothers did! Then he wanted me to do something—oh! I do not know what, but something he thought I could do—I felt it, and—and I threw the lamp at him. It was lighted and he went down in a heap and I—I ran right hard, but I went back and pulled him out when the fire started. I do not know why—for I want him out of the world. I shall be afraid always while he is in the world!"
"It's all right now, little Cyn, all, all right."
This only could the horrified woman repeat over and over, as she swayed to and fro with closed eyes and Cynthia on her breast.
Vividly she seemed to see the late scene. The helpless girl; the brutish man; the lonely night shutting them in and only a miracle to save. Details did not matter, and the miracle had come, but the after effects were here and now.
It was near noon before Marcia Lowe dared take Cynthia away from the shelter of the church, and when she did so she chose an hour when all but Greeley were absent from the store, and he was in the rear, eating his dinner.
"You must come to Trouble Neck, little Cyn," she said firmly; "you'll be safe there, and we must think this out."
Cynthia made no demur, and wrapped in Marcia Lowe's coat—Marcia had a lighter one beside—she clung close to the little doctor and walked the three miles to Trouble Neck without a word of complaint.
"It's plain good luck," Marcia Lowe thought, "that Martin Morley is out of hospital." And then she smiled grimly up into the girl-face beside her, for Cynthia was fully as tall as she.
It was late afternoon when Tod Greeley strode over to Trouble Neck for no particular reason. Outside the door he stood and listened to low-spoken words and snatches of song.
"'Taint nowise normal, I reckon," mused he; "a woman's tongue and mind has got to have some one to hit up against, or the recoil is going to do some right smart damage to the woman herself." Then he knocked, and went in at the word of command to enter.
"Just conversationing with yourself?" he asked.
"Yes. Poor company's better than none. Sit down, Mr. Greeley; you're always welcome."
"I brought some news. Crothers' factory is plumb burnt to the ground."
"Land sakes!" ejaculated the little doctor in the idiom of her home town; "any damage besides the factory?"
"Crothers is right used up. They say he tipped over the lamp in his hurry to get up and—things happened."
"Dear suz!" Marcia Lowe was lapsing into old-fashioned speech.
"And Miss Lowe, little Miss Cynthia was thar after hours! They do say she acted like she was possessed. She pulled Crothers out of the flames and saved his life I reckon—that is, if itissaved! He ain't perked up much yet, 'cording to reports. But Miss Lowe—little Miss Cyn ain't come home! I'm tumble feared lest she went back again for something, and——"
Miss Lowe got up from her chair and cautiously motioned Tod to the doorway of the lean-to.
"Look!" she whispered. Greeley expected still to see Martin, but instead he saw the delicate, sleeping face of Cynthia Walden. He drew back with a stifled cry.
"That there room o' yours," he faintly said when he reached the fireside again, "is right nerve-racking. It's like one of them Jack-boxes at Christmas."
"She only stopped here because she was tired. When she awakens I will take her home," explained Miss Lowe.
Greeley was nonplussed, but when he was in doubt he turned the subject and talked more than usual.
The following day Cynthia was taken home. Providence and the strain and excitement saved her from serious harm, but when Marcia Lowe left her by the gate of Stoneledge there seemed to be something tragic in the fact that after such an experience, no explanations were necessary. Ann Walden was past any earthly worriment, and Sally Taber could not understand then, or ever, the soul-hurt little Cynthia had received.
"It's good friends now and always, little Cyn?"
"Yes, dear Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!"
They stood by the dilapidated gate.
"And you will come often to Trouble Neck?"
"Right often."
"And you are not afraid? Remember I have a care over you."
"I am not afraid."
"Then kiss, little Cyn, and God bless you."
On her way home Marcia Lowe stopped at the church to rest and "talk it over with Uncle Theodore."
The golden winter sunset streamed through the window and lay bright and fair like a shining way up to the altar. Marcia walked the brilliant strip and sat down in the minister's pew. Wrapping her heavy coat about her she raised her eyes to the pulpit and a great comfort came. Then she closed her eyes and the pale, fine face of her uncle seemed to rise before her.
"If you could only tell me all about it, dear," she whispered. "I would help any little girl. God knows, but I could help yours so much easier! Isn't there some way, uncle, that you can make me understand? Is your place so far away?"
A step fell upon the floor; a shambling, tottering footstep. Miss Lowe turned and saw Andrew Townley.
"Sit here beside me," she said; "this is a good place to be."
"It's a right good place, ma'am. Seems like we-all can't kill Parson Starr. I seem to feel like it was only yesterday when he rode up The Way and sorter settled down like a blessing long o' us-all. Lately, as I pass by or turn in yere I get a call back to something what he spoke. To-day it came to me right sharp how he said 'greater love' and then went on to explanify. I'm right old in years, ma'am, and I'm doddering, I expect, but I reckon I knows as much as that po' moon chile o' Hope's. You know Crothers has got him, too, 'mong the wheels, and the po' lil' boy he comes home all wild and sicklike, and mornings Hope has to lick him down The Way—he hates that-er-much to go. Come to-morrow, I'm going down to Crothers' and I'm going to offer up myself 'stead o' that moon chile. When I go to join Parson Starr I'd like to have something to offer him by way o' excusing myself. 'Parson, I'll say to him, parson, this I done 'long o' "Greater Love."'"
Marcia Lowe's eyes filled with tears as she took the poor old fumbling hands in her own.
"Dear, dear friend," she faltered, "God will not need your service. He has chosen a burnt offering instead of a human sacrifice. The factory is in ashes now, and for a time, the children may rest."
"Sho'!" murmured Andrew. "Sho' to be sure." Then he wandered back to that past which held Starr.
"The last time I saw the parson was that-er-day when he went a riding off to the Gulch to help ole Miss Lanley out o' life. He had lil' Miss Queenie long o' him—she was the Walden girl aswas."
Marcia Lowe sat up straighter and again gripped the wandering, wrinkled hands. Her uncle's letter came vividly to mind and she felt suddenly that she was being led by old Townley back to clear vision.
"Go on!" she whispered soothingly, seeking not to confuse the rambling wits. "Just where was old Miss Lanley's place?"
Andrew laughed foolishly.
"Lanley!" he pattered on. "Susie May Lanley! I reckon she was a right putty one in her day. I uster set and watch her and say this-er-way: 'plenty o' them! I'm going to get one!' meaning to make her jealous long o' gals, but she never took no heed—but Landy! she died forsaken and lone, and times is when I think she would have been a mighty sight better off if she had took me!"
Townley's long reminiscence had tired him woefully and he began to cry pitifully, swaying to and fro and repeating:
"She done died forsaken and lone!"
Then he fell asleep, his white head on Marcia Lowe's shoulder, the full radiance of the late sun flooding over them through the western window. For a half hour he slept and when he awakened he seemed hopelessly addled. Muttering and groping, hardly seeming to notice his companion, he made his way out of the church.
"Old Miss Susie May Lanley!" the little doctor repeated over and over. "I must hold to that until I get it on paper. I guess Uncle Theodore was married by some one living near old Miss Susie May Lanley's!"
Just as Marcia Lowe was leaving the church, Cynthia came running down the trail. She was smiling and calm.
"I came back," she said confidingly, "to tell you something. I've worked it out myself."
"Yes, dear;" the girl's face struck Marcia strangely. A new expression rested upon it.
"I'm—not—going—to suffer any more."
"Why, little Cyn?"
"No. No more! It hurts and hurts and then you get over it, and go on just the same. I'm not going to suffer!"
Miss Lowe went close and took the pretty face in her hands.
"See here, little girl, if suffering is a teacher it is not such a cruel thing; be a good learner."
"No. Last night in the blackness and fear something happened—here!" The girl put her hand over her heart. "But now with the sun shining over Lost Mountain, it's all so right safe and still and happy that I'm sorry for the hurt of last night. No, I am not going to suffer. I'm going to be just lil' Cyn again. I thought you would like to know."
"Oh, dear," and then Marcia laughed. "You-all make me want to cry so easily! I am glad, dear. Surely I do notwantany one to suffer; but see here, will you come to me every day, Cynthia? I want to teach you some necessary things. Things like—well—book things! Things that Sandy just loved."
"I reckon I will, Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!"
Then she was gone as she had come. Crothers' touch had only alarmed her; it had not soiled her.
"Thank God!" murmured the little doctor; "the woman in the child shielded her from all but physical shock! And what a quaint philosophy for a girl to evolve."
That evening as Marcia Lowe stood before her little mirror in the lean-to, braiding her long smooth hair, she talked a bit for comfort's sake.
"It's plain luxury to lie in my own bed again," she said, "the bench in the other room can never be made anything but a martyr's cot." Then she glanced up and faced her own smiling image with the braids twisted about the head.
"Oh!" she faltered, falling back, "oh! Uncle Theodore!" For there, smiling at her with the slow, lingering smile, the face of Cynthia seemed to shine out by the flickering candlelight, instead of her own!
The long dressing-gown gave a childish setting to the little doctor's form, the coronet braids; the happy, smiling face was young and wonderfully, strikingly like Cynthia's.
"They always said I was so like Uncle Theodore! I've got Cynthia to her father by way of—me!"
Then the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady did a most unaccountable thing—she fairly pranced about the room.
"I've found it!" she sang; "without resurrecting old Miss Susie May Lanley! What's a stupid marriage certificate compared to God's plain handwriting? I can keep my secret now, Uncle Theodore, until the right time. It was so good of you, dear, to give me proof."