No one can help me--but you!"

People might think what they cared to about this stranger from Trouble Neck--the men still distrusted her--but the women were rapidly being won to her.

"I 'low you can count on me, ma'am. I says to myself often, says I--Sally Taber, jes' so long as you can make a friend or do a 'commodation job, you is useful to de community--when yo'

can't--why--den!" And with that Sally gave a "pouf!" as if blowing away a feather.

Marcia Lowe could not keep her eyes from the shining, greased lips; she was becoming acquainted with mountain peculiarities, but she was perplexed by the neat Sally's daubed face.

"It's about--Miss Walden," she said softly, moving her chair closer to Sally.

"What's happened 'long o' her?" An anxious look crept into Sally's eyes.

"I fear--she is not exactly right."

"It's in the family," Sally murmured; "when things go awry 'long o'

them, they jes' naturally take to queerness. The ole general, Miss Ann's father, he done think he was God-a'mighty, long toward the last.

I kin see him now a-coming up The Way blessing us-all. They ain't none o' them dangerous, jes' all around cracked, ma'am."

"But the little girl, Miss Taber, she ought not to be alone there with Miss Walden. You see I have studied medicine and I know--it is dangerous and--it mustn't be. See here! I cannot do anything without making more trouble. I'm not one of them, but you could go and--well, just take control! Say that you--need shelter and help--you know Miss Walden would do anything for her friends; put it that way and then"--here Marcia Lowe laid some money in the old shrivelled hands, "there will always be money for you to buy what is necessary for the comfort of you all."

The keen eyes glittered, and the quick mind was caught by the subtlety of the suggestion. Here was a chance to play great lady; to return favours that long had been conferred upon her, and at the same time retain her respectability and dignity. It was a master stroke and Marcia Lowe felt a glow of self-appreciation.

"You can care for her, Miss Taber; you can see that Cynthia is properly looked after, and you can give Miss Walden the joy of her life in thinking that she is able to help you. It is a pardonable bit of deceit, but will you assist me?"

After a decent show of hesitation, Sally decided that she would and, at the close of the afternoon, was seated behind the little doctor--with her pitiful store of clothing, jogging in a bundle at her back, on the way to Stoneledge. Miss Lowe set her down at the trail leading up to the old crumbling house, with these words:

"If ever my uncle did a kind deed, for you, Miss Taber, do this for him now."

Toting up the hill, Sally's thoughts wandered back to Theodore Starr and settled on a certain dark, cold night when he sat in her cabin piling the wood on her fire, while she lay shivering with chill upon her wretched bed. All the charms had failed, the rabbit foot, under the dripping of the north end of the roof had not eased a single pang, and hope was about gone when Starr chanced by. He had meant to ask for a bite and a night's shelter, for he was worn by travel and service, but instead he sat beside her the night through and fought death by the bravery of his spirit and the homely task of keeping warm the shivering body. He had put his coat over her and aroused her to interest and courage.

"The Lord does not let one of us off until our day's work is done," he had said even when he himself feared Sally's duties were over.

"Ah' mighty right He war'," Sally now muttered, panting up the last rise. "I reckon I got something yet to do."

Her advent at Stoneledge was nothing less than consummate acting.

Knocking at the kitchen door she responded to the call from within and stood before Ann Walden crouching by the fire, and Cynthia awkwardly trying to evolve an evening meal from some materials on the table.

"Miss Ann, I've come to ax mercy o' you."

Miss Walden laughed foolishly.

"Everything is plumb gone an' I got to tell some one o' my misery.

Nothing to eat; nothing to hold onto 'cept a trifle o' money what I'se afraid to let any one know I'se got. Miss Ann, chile, there ain't any one goin' to be s'prised at money coming from the Great House, so jes'

let me bide long o' you an' lil' miss, for God's sake, ma'am."

The old tie between the family and its dependents held true now even through the growing mists of Ann Walden's brain.

"Cyn," she commanded, "get Ivy--where is Ivy? Tell her to make up a bed for Sally in the loft over the kitchen."

And then again she laughed that meaningless laugh.

CHAPTER XI

Life in the Morley cabin was tense and dangerously vital. The cold had settled down now with serious intent; the door was permanently closed except of entrances and exits and the two small sliding windows in the front and back of the living-room were never opened, and they were coated with grease and dirt until even the brightest day filtered through but dimly.

Martin was depressed and forlorn, he took what was offered him, asked no questions and seemed far and away from any hope of reasserting himself. He brought water and wood indoors; he made and kept the fire; he slept on the settle before the hearth and always he was dreaming or thinking of Sandy. The letter that had, after many weeks, drifted to him, had been read to him by The Forge doctor who happened to be riding by when Martin tremblingly pleaded with him for help.

"It's this-er-way," Morley had explained, striving to hide the depths of his illiteracy; "my eyes don' gone back on me. I reckon I better go down to The Forge and get specs, but jes' now I'd like to have light on this yere letter."

The doctor read poor Sandy's effusion with some emotion. With broader experience he saw the effort the boy had made to withhold his own lonely state from the father. There was an attempt at cheer in the words weighted, as the reader saw, with homesickness and longing.

"Now, Morley," he cautioned, when the letter was ended, "you keep your hands off that boy. If there is a spark of love for him in your heart, let him fight his battle off there alone. He's found a good friend and it's his one chance. If you want to do anything for him keep yourself above water; have the family respectable for him to come back to. I'm not much on prophesying, but remembering what you once were and what his mother was, I have hopes of Sandy."

No one knew or could have guessed that poor Martin was heeding the doctor's words, but he was. He had stopped drinking. Not a drop of liquor had passed his lips for weeks, and the craving was stronger at times than Martin could endure. At such moments he stole to the outshed and, gripping a certain little ragged jacket, which still hung there, to his twitching face, would moan: "Oh! God, help me for Sandy's sake." Not for his own--but for Sandy's sake always. And God heard and upheld the weak creature.

Then came the night when Mary and Molly aroused Martin from his sleep as they came in about midnight. Martin had supposed them upstairs long before. He had come in at nine o'clock from the shed where he had wrestled with his craving and, by the help of God, had come out victorious once again. He had fallen asleep soon after and a vivid and strange dream had held him captive by its power. Sandy had come to him clearly, and comfortingly; had sat close to him and laid his hand in his. They had talked familiarly, and then suddenly the boy had asked:

"Dad, how about Molly? She belongs to us-all, you said. I've been thinking about Molly; where is she?"

Just then the dream faded; the man on the hard settle pulled himself up, looked dazedly at the almost dead fire and--listened! Some one was fumbling at the door; some one was coming in! Martin's heart stood still for, with the dream fresh in his mind, he thought it was Sandy, and even through his sick longing for the boy a fear seized him. But Mary came into the dim room with Molly clinging to her. They tiptoed across the floor toward the stairway and had almost reached it when Martin flung a log of wood on the fire, and in the quick flash of light that followed stood up and asked in a clear, forceful voice:

"Whar you-all been?"

The strangeness and surprise took Mary off her guard, and she faltered:

"What's that to you, Mart Morley?"

Martin threw another log on the fire, as if by so doing he could illuminate more than the cold black room.

"What yo-all been doing? Molly, come here."

Frightened and trembling the girl came forward. She looked far older than her years. Her bold, coarse beauty had developed amazingly during the past few months, and the expression on her face now roused all the dormant manhood in Morley's nature. Ignoring the woman by the stairway, he gripped Molly by the shoulders, and holding her so that the lurid light of the flaming logs fell upon her, he drove his questions into the girl's consciousness and brought alarmed truth forth before a lie could master it.

"Whar yo' been, Molly?"

"Up to--to Teale's."

"What--doing?"

"Dancing for 'em."

Martin's eyes flashed. It was quite plain to him now--the hideous, drunken orgy, and this little girl fanning ugly passions into fire by her youth and beauty!

"You----" Morley rarely swore, but the eloquent pause was more thrilling than the word he might have spoken. While he clutched Molly, his infuriated eyes held Mary like something tangible, and drew her forth from her shadows.

"She's--mine!" the woman panted. For the first time in her life she was awed by Morley; "she's mine and--the devil's. That was the bargain and no questions asked. The devil pays good wages, Mart. We'll--we'll share with you!"