"I do not ask, Mr. Markham, that you try to withhold your judgments until you know all the facts about my boy. You were never fair to him; you saw him--you see him now--through his father, my poor brother!"

"Madam, for his mother's sake I have always kept in touch with his career even when I knew he was beyond any caution or judgment of mine.

I know that he has shamefully compromised a young woman and quite openly flaunts his relations with her by calling them some new-fangled name. Perhaps I am a narrow-gauge man, madam. All my life I have been obliged to travel from a certain point to a certain point--I'm made that way. I have endeavoured to look about to help my fellow-men, when I could in justice do so, but I have stuck to the tracks that seem to me to lead safely through the land of my journey. I am not interested in branch roads or sidings."

Mrs. Treadwell was a bit breathless and angry but she was too far from shore yet to indulge in relaxation.

"Lans is not an evil fellow; he is high-minded and will prove himself in due time. I really am only seeking to help you be patient until he has had his opportunity, and not, in the meantime, make a fatal mistake. A new era is about to dawn when men and women, for the good of the race, will attack social conditions from a different plane from what you and I have been taught to consider right. Lans is in the vanguard of this movement--but I only implore you to give him time and while we are waiting let me ask you this--would you be more lenient to--to this protege of yours than you are to Lans, if I could prove to you that he has been hiding his private life from you entirely? Has, apparently, laid himself bare to your confidence and good-will while, in a secret and shameful manner, he has had very disreputable relations with a young woman in Boston?"

Levi Markham took this blow characteristically: he sighed, raised his eyes to the speaker's face, and said calmly:

"I thank you, madam, for your interest in my affairs. I can readily see that you would not dare come to me with this matter unless you had facts. I appreciate your good-will toward me and Lans, but I am just wondering if this--this relationship of Sandford Morley's with a--with the young woman, might not be viewed as leniently as Lansing's--if all were known? He might call it by a new-fangled name, you know."

"Why, Mr. Markham! His intrigue is a low, vulgar thing. That is exactly what I am trying to make you understand. The difference lies right there. Lans is open and above-board; he's a gentleman. This young Morley is----"

"Well, well, madam!" Levi held up his hand calmly silencing the indignant voice. "I know Lansing has taken every one into his confidence who chose to lend an ear; we have all shared his life whether we approved or not and I will say this: young Morley has never asked any one to play confessor for him, but I am going to give him an opportunity to speak for himself if he wants to."

"He will lie, sir."

"He's the worst liar you ever saw, Mrs. Treadwell."

Just how to take this Olive Treadwell did not know. She was distracted. She felt that Markham was playing with her! Perhaps he knew all about Morley's escapades and preferred them to Lans' newer ideals.

"You will investigate for yourself?" she pleaded; "in justice to Lans?"

"In my own way, Madam."

"You mean----"

"That I will look to my own interests as I always have. When all is said and done, ma'am, there's no law in the State that confines me to leaving my savings to any particular young man. I have still, I hope, a few years to my credit. I promise you I will devote them to securing the best possible good for the _trust_, as you so well put it, in my keeping. You are quite right also in saying that I consider the power of money-making a talent. It is my only talent and I do not underestimate it."

"You are a--hard man, Markham. Time has not softened you."

"I will still endeavour to be just, madam. I will tell you this--if I discover that I have been duped, I'll give, outright, a good sum of money to you in trust for Lansing!"

"You think I--I have simply tried to blacken Morley's character for personal gain?"

"No, no, Mrs. Treadwell. I ascribed the best possible motives to you!"

"Levi Markham--I cannot understand you."

"Why should you try, madam?"

Olive Treadwell got up and paced the room.

"You humiliate me!" she said angrily. "Of course I desire my brother's son to inherit rightfully. He will have all that I die possessed of.

I am seeking his interests but only justly and humanly. When he first came in contact with this--this investment of yours--as you call him, it was as _tutor_ to this Morley. Consider! _tutor_, my brother's son, to your--your waif! And the dear, noble fellow--my Lans, fell in love with him. Has trusted and helped him socially. Why, he made his college life easy for him by his own popularity. Quite by accident I discovered the vulgar intrigue of this--this Morley. I saw him go into a house where a little seamstress of mine lives! I inquired; I found him out; and--and, not for any low gain, but gain in the larger, higher sense I pocketed my pride and came to you as helpless women do come to strong men and you make me feel like a--village scandal-monger!"

"I beg your pardon, madam. I am sorry that my manner suggests this to you. But can you not see that I must master this situation in my own way? I cannot sell out my interest in my investment without reason.

Give me a--week--no forty-eight hours!"

"Thank heaven!" Olive Treadwell exclaimed, "there is the carriage. No matter what the outcome of this is, Levi Markham, I reckon you'll live to thank me for putting you on the right track."

"I'm still on my narrow gauge, madam." Markham smiled not unkindly and put out his hand.

"Please bid your sister farewell. I shall not return to Bretherton, I imagine. I will never willingly abase myself again, not even for Lans!"

When she had gone Markham sank into the big leather chair and looked blankly before him. His eyes were fixed across the desk where he himself generally sat, and a kind of pity moved him for the part of him that no one ever knew or suspected. In Sandy Morley, he had realized nearer his yearning and ambition than he ever had before. His paternal instincts had been, to a certain degree, gratified. The boy had seemed so entirely his; had responded so splendidly to his efforts for him.

They had grown so close together during the past years in their silent, undemonstrative fashion. Could it be possible that he had been deceived?

And then Markham pulled himself together and went around the desk to his revolving chair. It was as if the stern man of affairs took control and demanded of the doubting creature opposite, common sense and plain justice. "Hold your horses, Levi," he cautioned; "bide your time. Don't get scared off. Do you remember that old mine that no one else took stock in? It bought and feathered your first nest! Just you hold to that and keep your mind easy until you get onto the job yourself!"

CHAPTER XVI

Sandy came down from Boston that evening, tired-eyed and dusty. He walked up from the station because he had taken an earlier train and he wanted the walk through the quiet, sweet woods and fields before he met the two friends from whom he always kept his worries and troubles. By the time he entered the house on the hill he would be himself again!

And what had the seven years done for and with Sandy Morley? Outwardly they had wrought wonders with him. He was over six feet tall, broad and good to look upon. His clean-cut dark face was rather stern and serious, but his eyes had caught and held the light and kindness the world had shown him since he left Lost Mountain. When Sandy smiled you forgot his sternness; he could look very joyous, but recent happenings had set a seal upon his brighter side. Well dressed and well cared for he strode ahead, taking a cut be knew well through the woods and pastures leading up to the farmhouse, and for the first time in years the homesickness for Lost Hollow surged over him. Always in his deeper, more thoughtful moods the old home-place had a part. For years he rarely ate a meal, when he was hungry, without a grip of memory taking a flavour from the food. His hours of ease and pleasure were haunted by grim recollections of toil and dreariness which he had once endured, and which others, like him, were still undergoing. He never forgot, never became callous; but as time went on and success became more certain, he learned to estimate the value of utilizing his chances and economizing his strength and powers. As in the old days of preparation among the hills, he put in safe keeping his earnings, never counting them; never trusting himself to the encouragement or depression of their amount for good or ill--he awaited his hour and call. And, too, as in the old days he mistrusted and feared Molly, so now there were moments when he, superstitiously, expected some one or some thing to defeat him in his aims and ideals. For never had his vision faltered. He was still preparing to help Lost Hollow and all them who dwelt therein.

There had been times in the past when, strange to say, with good food in plenty about him, he had yearned with hungry longing for the rough ash cakes and sour milk of his early home; and there would always be hours when he would raise his eyes in soul-sickness and pray for a glimpse of Lost Mountain--the one lofty thing in his one-time little world. And the first few springs after his leaving his home he was ill when he saw the dogwood blossoms--they called to the depths of his nature and the depths answered not! He had kept the vow made to himself--he would neither write nor seek word from the hills until he were ready to go back to his own.

The first days at school were tortured experiences, but he mastered them first by physical courage, then by sheer fineness of character.

He made great strides after the second year, and when he graduated from the New Hampshire Preparatory he was ready, with some tutoring, to enter Harvard. Oddly enough Lansing Treadwell became his tutor, neither knowing more of the other than the circumstances demanded.

Again Sandy's rare disposition won for him a place in Treadwell's good will and liking. The young tutor prided himself upon his own popularity and social position; he made a virtue of his necessity for earning money and, in good natured, lordly fashion, blazed a trail for his uncle's protege with a laugh of indifference at his own defeat with his austere relative.

When in due time Morley graduated with honours from college none was more generous with praise and pride than Lansing Treadwell.

"By Jove! my friend," he said, "I'm nothing but a big, bungling giant without genius or talent. Let me set you on my shoulders and you'll conquer the world--our nice, little world of Boston!"

But Sandy had no social ambitions. When his summer work in the mills was over, he found his greatest pleasure at Bretherton with Markham and Matilda and old Bob. And then, when sudden necessity lashed him to unexpected endeavour, he went to young Treadwell and said simply:

"I am not going to work in the mills this vacation; Mr. Markham has offered me a trip somewhere, but I have need of money for personal uses and I must--earn some. Can you help me?"

And again Lansing Treadwell, with a grin of amused understanding, put Sandy in the way of tutoring a rich man's sons.

And now, Morley, tired, sad at heart, needing what he was too generous and unselfish to ask for, was responding to Markham's summons and was on his way to Bretherton.

Of course neither Markham nor his sister could understand his need of sympathy and tenderness. Proudly he had withheld his private cares and troubles. He accepted from others only what he might some day hope to return; he never drew a check on the bank of sympathy without taking account of his savings!

When Sandy came in sight of the beautiful old house on the hill, and when but a meadow lay between him and it, he gave a long, sweet bird-call and waited. A second time he called and then he saw Bob loping over the front lawn and, with upraised sniffing nose, caper about. A third trill settled the dog's doubts, and with an abandon that age could not overcome he ran and jumped to the unseen friend.

"Good old fellow!" cried Sandy when Bob drew near; "good old pal!" And then the dog was in the young fellow's arms. After a few moments they sedately went on their homeward way together--Sandy's hand resting upon the uplifted yellow head.

"Sandy, you look thin!" Matilda remarked at dinner as she eyed him over her spectacles. "You make me think of the lean days after your fever seven years ago."

"I reckon I am still growing, Miss Markham."

Levi scanned the young face.