The woman was actually whining and seeking to propitiate the man.

"I've been true to you, Mart. Sure as God hears me, and 'taint cause I'm old and unsought either. I'll look after her, Mart--but--we-all have got to live!"

Morley tried to control himself before he spoke, and finally managed to say, not unkindly:

"Molly, you go upstairs. Shut--shut and lock the door!"

"Mart!" Genuine terror rang in Mary's tones. "Mart--she's mine and----"

"Go!" commanded Morley, and the child almost ran to do his bidding.

Then alone the man and woman faced each other. Desperation gave courage to Mary. If all were lost but her physical strength and bravado, then she must use them.

"You did what you wanted to do with him as was yours," she panted; "you helped him away, and left us-all to starve. You leave--Molly to me and----"

"Stop!" cried Morley, unable to hear the brutal repetition. "You would sell the--the child to Teale and his kind?"

"It's the only way, Mart. I'll keep my hold on her--they----"

"You!" And then, driven by the outraged virtue of the suppressed and forgotten past, Morley gave expression to his emotions in the language of The Hollow. For the first time in his life he struck a woman!

Once the deed was done he reeled back, calmed at once into frozen horror. Mary staggered and fell. In falling she struck her head against the andirons on the hearth and lay quite, quite still while a stream of blood from a cut behind the left ear mingled with the ashes and turned them dark and moist. It seemed hours that Morley looked and looked before he could master himself and move toward the woman upon the floor. Finally he listened to her heart, but his own pulsing ears deceived him; he tried to raise her up, but his strength was gone, and he let the lifeless body drop again on the hearth. Then a craven desperation overcame him. Gone were his courage and power, like a maddened criminal he strode to the stairway and wrenched the locked door from its hinges and sprang up to where Molly, sobbing and moaning, crouched in the far corner.

"Come," he whispered; "come!"

"Where's--mother?"

"Her's gone--to--Teale!" The lie rang out fiercely, boldly. Then wrapping an old bedspread about Molly and keeping her close to him, he made his way down the stairs and out of the house. Molly did not turn to look into the lower room, she believed Martin, and she was numb with terror.

"Whar we-all going?" she panted, as Martin dragged her on. This question roused Morley. Up to that instant he had not considered where he was going; he only felt the necessity of flight.

"To--to Trouble Neck," he answered as if some one else were speaking through him.

"To her as--as they call the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady."

Molly did not speak again, but the answer had stilled somewhat her fear and anguish. By the time she and Martin reached the Trouble Neck cabin her uncanny shrewdness and cunning were well to the fore.

The little clock on the mantelshelf had just struck two when Marcia Lowe raised her tired eyes from the book spread out on the table before her.

The one large room of the cabin was kitchen, dining-room, parlour, library; all that was not included in bed-chamber. The lean-to was Marcia Lowe's sleeping apartment and a tiny room above reached only by a ladder from outside, served as a trim, cleanly resting-place for a chance guest or a needy traveller.

The little doctor lifted her aching eyes and took in the rude comfort of her home-place with a deep sigh.

"Oh!" she whispered--for she had adopted the compromise of the lonely woman and talked aloud to herself--"oh! if they could forget my sex!"

She was thinking of a conversation she had had with The Forge doctor that very day.

"I--I wish you would work with me," she had pleaded; "they would accept you; obey what you say and--give me a chance."

The doctor had laughed good-naturedly. Miss Lowe amused him hugely.

She seemed to him like a child playing with sugar and bread pills.

"My dear young lady," he had said; "they'd shoot me, and with good reason, if I let any petticoat Saw Bones tamper with them; no insult intended--only compliment, dear lady! Your books read like fairy stories; I'm too old a hand to be taken in. The revised Bible, ma'am, is dangerous for souls, and new ideas in physic are about the same for bodies. I read when I can--but I'm too human to experiment on my kind.

A few old remedies and a good stiff bluff are all that are needed up-er-here. Now as to you, my dear young miss, I'd have to put you under lock and key or buy you a return ticket to that fly-in-the-face-of-Providence state of yours if you tampered with the bodies of these people. That uncle of yours juggled considerable in his day, but souls are one thing; bodies, another."

Marcia Lowe now clasped her hands behind her tired head and raised her eyes to the low ceiling.

"Just for one faithful soul!" she murmured; "no, one faithful body that would trust itself to me for--a month; a month! A few days of starvation; a magic little pill; a spell of patient waiting and then--a miracle."

But no response came from the stillness of the night and Miss Lowe was about to make preparations for bed when a sound outside stayed her.

Then came a knock on the door! She went to the small window beside the door, drew aside the dainty white curtain, opened it halfway and asked:

"Is that you, Hope?" She had promised Liza to bide with her when her hour came, but it was not Hope who replied:

"This is Martin Morley, ma'am. Me and lil' Molly."

The door was opened at once and closed after the two.

"Now," said the little doctor, stirring the fire to greater effort and seeing that her callers had the easiest chairs in the room, "now, then, Mr. Morley."

Molly followed every motion of Marcia Lowe with unchildlike interest.

Fear was gone from the girl's face, but an alert sharpness marked it.

"Can you give her," Martin nodded toward Molly, "a bed for--for to-night? I have something to tell you."

Marcia Lowe sensed that something serious lay behind the request, and rose at once and went to Molly.

"Come into my bedroom," she said; "I can make you very comfy, I'm sure.

Will you sleep with me?"

Molly nodded and followed meekly. After a time Marcia Lowe came back and, standing in front of Morley, said quickly:

"What is it?"

The haggard, haunted face was raised to her.

"I've--I've done killed Mary!" he said simply.

The little doctor shuddered, but controlled her features; her eyes did not fall from the wretched man's face.

"Tell me!" was all she said. Then Martin slowly in a hushed voice, described all that had passed, even the vision of Sandy.

"The Lord-a'mighty, He knows I didn't mean to kill," Martin quivered; "but who-all will believe that? I meant to stay clean and fair for the boy's coming back, Miss Lowe, ma'am, deed I did, and now he'll come back to----" Martin could not frame the hideous truth in words; he gulped miserably and went on; "please, ma'am, keep--her, Molly, from Teale and them-all!"

"And you?" So simply did the question come that the man replied in kind.

"I--I can't let them-all cotch me, ma'am. Come morning, I'll be past hurting any one, more."

The childlike pathos in this criminal's voice and attitude confused the listener. For the life of her she could not deal with the situation in any ordinary fashion; it seemed like a dramatic incident bungled by amateurs. Presently she asked gently: