"She lay in my arms--I kissed her.

"I took her with me on a long drive through the mountains--there was a dying woman and my dear love carried the poor soul unto the parting of the ways with such divine tenderness as I had never before beheld. She sang and almost played with her until the sad creature forgot her death pangs. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw--that dying hour was perhaps the only joyous hour the woman ever had known--and my sun-touched darling gave it to her!

"We were married on our way home. I wanted to speak at once, but Queenie pleaded. She did not wish, just in her own first moment of joy, to hurt the sister who was mother to her as well as sister. I listened, but I realized that my child-wife was afraid! That was it.

With all her brave, splendid characteristics, Ann Walden is one to call forth fear. I felt myself shrinking hourly from confession. She is all judge; she can be just, but she cannot, I think, be merciful. Hers it is to carry out the law, not sympathize with those who fall under the law. She makes cowards of us all! She is too detached to reach humanity, or for humanity, erring, sinning humanity, to reach her.

"The call came--I had to come to the sick and dying. I made half peace with myself by telling Ann Walden that I could not carry out our compact. I told her, what is the hardest thing for any man to tell a woman--that I did not love her. I could not love her! and that it was her sister I loved. I meant to explain everything later and confess--I expected to be back in a day or so--but I am here still and the chances are I must stay on for a long time, and I may lose my life; conditions are terrible, and only once a week a doctor comes!

"She, Ann Walden, is not the hard judge alone. I must not give you a wrong impression. When I told her, she shielded me against myself; would not let me suffer as I should--she excused me. She, to excuse me! But if anything happens to me--I want all my money to go to Ann Walden. By this act she will understand my trust in her and, accepting it, she will do for Queenie what otherwise she could not do--and do it more wisely than my darling could for herself. It must be the common tie, this little fortune.

"I am feeling very ill.

"I fear--my time--has come!

"I recall--there was no marriage certificate, but the service was performed by----"

Ann Walden dropped the blurred sheet and steadied herself against the window. Evidently Theodore Starr had forgotten the name, or perhaps the deadly dizziness of the disease had overcome him. It did not matter. Ann Walden, like Marcia Lowe, had no doubts--but his sister evidently had had, and suddenly a bitter hatred filled Ann Walden's soul toward the dead woman she had never known.

"She who should have known him best," Ann Walden's thoughts ran burningly on--"she to doubt him and let all the years of injustice go on!"

And then the eyes of the tormented woman turned fearfully toward the far side of the room. The late afternoon was turning into twilight and the corner by the chimney was dim and full of shadow.

"And I--who should have trusted Queenie--I who knew her best of all--I let her suffer----"

The wraith by the hearth had her full revenge at that hour, for Ann Walden bowed beneath the memories that crowded upon her; the vivid, torturing memories. That last night--when the moans and calls of the dumb mind strove to express the agony of the poor body! The solemn hour when God entrusted a living soul to a mother incapable of realizing anything but the mortal pangs that were costing her her life!

The child dishonoured, shamed and hidden because of--misunderstanding.

Humbly Ann Walden confessed that Theodore Starr's sister was no more to blame than she herself.

Outside a sudden shower had come over Lost Mountain; the room in which Ann Walden stood became dark and still, then a sharp crash shook the house--something white fell upon the hearth; ashes, long dead ashes were blown hither and yon by a rising wind. With a wild cry of--"My God!" Ann Walden sank in a chair. Wornout nerves could stand no more.

When she recovered consciousness she was lying upon the old horsehair sofa in the library. Ivy had gone on an errand, but Cynthia stood over her and the girl's face shocked the reviving woman into alertness.

Familiarity had dulled her in the past, but now she saw the expression and outline of Theodore Starr's features bending near her.

"Oh!" she moaned shudderingly. "Oh! oh!"

"Aunt Ann, it is little Cyn! The tree by the smoke-house was struck, but we-all are safe."

"I must be alone!" Then gropingly and tremblingly Ann Walden got upon her feet.

"The letter," she panted, "the letter."

"Here it is--I found it on the floor where you fell."

At the time Cynthia was too distressed to attach any importance to the matter, but she recalled the incident later.

"Yes, yes!" Ann Walden gripped the closely written sheets; "and now I--I want to be alone!"

CHAPTER IV

Sandy Morley came out of his shed and turned his bruised and aching face to Lost Mountain. It was very early, and the first touch of a red morn was turning the mists on the highest peak to flaming films of feathery lightness.

There had been a desperate quarrel in the Morley cabin the night before, and Sandy, defending his father for the first time in his life against the assault of Mary, had reaped the results of the woman's outraged surprise and resentment.

"You!" she had shrieked, rushing at him; "you, taking on the man-trick, are you? Then----" and the heavy blow dealt him carried Sandy to the floor by its force. Later he crept to his shelter and suffered the growing pangs of maturity. The words of Mary had roused him more than the hurt she had inflicted. No longer could he submit--why? All the years he had borne the shame and degradation, but of a sudden something rose up within him that rebelled and defied. He no longer hated as he had in his first impotent childish heat; he seemed now to be a new and changed creature looking on with surprise and abhorrence at the suffering of some one over whom he had charge and for whom he was responsible. The some one was Sandy Morley, but who was this strange and suddenly evolved guardian who rose supreme over conditions and demanded justice for the hurt boy lying on the straw mattress in the wretched outhouse?

All night, sleeping only at intervals, Sandy Morley strove to understand. Morning found him still confused and tormented. He went outside and with aching eyes looked upon the cloud. Presently, as if ordered by a supreme artist, the rosy films parted majestically and Lost Mountain, stern and grim, stood clearly defined! Just then a bird-note broke the mystic stillness; it filled The Hollow with triumphant joy--it became part of the tumult of Sandy's soul compelling the discord to lose itself in harmony.

"I must go away!" Sandy murmured as if in prayer. "I must go away!"

The new man into which he was merging felt its way cautiously through the brightening prospect. "I must go away, now."

That was it. The years of preparation were past. Little or much, he must take his savings and go forth! For a moment a soul loneliness possessed him.

"Where?" he faltered in that rosy quiet that was moved and stirred by the bird-song. "Where?" There was only one place on earth to him beyond his mountain home--he must go to that state which recognized so generously the yearning for knowledge he must go to Massachusetts! But now that the hour had arrived he found his day-dreamings of the past were as vague and unreliable as guides as his idea of heaven, that state of mind which Marcia Lowe always insisted was here and now, or nowhere at all!

Well, he would go to the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady and get a more concise conception of heaven and Massachusetts, if possible.

Sandy turned his bruised face to earth as he reached this decision; like a condemned man on his last earthly day, he set about the doing of the unimportant but necessary duties that lay between the dawn and the night. With no joy did Sandy Morley anticipate his great change. He only realized the "call," and in a subtle, compelling way he felt himself driven by forces, quite beyond his control, to bear himself bravely.

He filled the rusty pail with water from the spring down by the Branch; he brought wood and lighted a fire on the ashy hearth before which, the night before, the quarrel had waged. Having finished the homely tasks he gathered some scraps of ash cakes and bacon together and made for himself a breakfast, which he washed down with some thin, sour buttermilk. After this he went to his shed and arrayed himself in a suit of clothes, old but decent, that some one at The Forge had charitably given him; then, packing a basket with some luscious late peas and berries that he had been fostering for weeks in a tiny garden patch back of the cabin, he started out on his last day's journey on the hills for many and many a year. He had thought it out clearly while he was performing his tasks. He would bargain and sell; he would draw Miss Lowe out as to particulars of direction, cost and details; he would bid her good-bye--she a stranger who had been so kind to him! He would miss her teaching and guidance; miss her strange inspiration of joyousness and courage. After leaving Trouble Neck he must see Cynthia Walden and tell her that the great hour had come! Then there was to be the final scene. He was going to ask his father to go away with him!

The quarrel of the night before had decided him. Together he and his father might make a place for themselves beyond the touch of Mary and the sound of her terrible voice. Tenderly and with a beating heart Sandy recalled the old, old days--the days when Martin sang, and prayed his wonderful prayers to a little happy child. Yes, they would go away together and then nothing would be quite so hard or impossible.

Thus arranged, Sandy began his day. He sold his basketful at the first house--a place five miles away where some strange artist-folks were boarding. Sandy got a great deal of money there, for not only did the mistress of the house pay him well, but a man and woman gave him a dollar for posing for them while they sketched him. Reaching Trouble Neck, Sandy met his first setback. Miss Lowe was away; the little cabin was closed and on the door was pinned a scrap of paper which confided to any chance visitor that the owner would be gone for several days. Marcia Lowe had set out for that far place among the hills where her uncle's body had been laid years before. She had gone to make it beautiful, when she located it, and the task was to take longer than she knew.

Sandy sat down upon the doorstep dejected and disappointed. He had depended more than he knew upon what he felt sure the little doctor could give him, and yet, not for a moment, did he contemplate waiting for her return--his order had been given. As his great-grandfather had taken up arms unquestioningly long ago, so Sandy now responded to this later command. He must go that night!

After resting for a few moments and struggling against the dreariness that was spreading through his thought he roused and set forth for the Walden place. Having no legitimate business at the back door of Stoneledge, the boy had no intention of braving old Ivy's sombre stare or the chance meeting with the mistress of the Great House, but there were other ways of communicating with Cynthia besides the back door and the vicarious personalities of those who ruled over her. Youth has its own methods of telegraphy, and the hills people are master hands at secrecy. There was a certain bird-note for which Sandy was famous: a low but shrill pipe that had startled old Ivy more than once and was nearly always successful in causing Cynthia to materialize in due time.

So Sandy, from the shelter of trees back of the Stoneledge smoke-house, gave his peculiar and penetrating call. A second time he gave it and then Ivy issued forth and, cocking her weird old head on one side, listened. A long silence followed. The hot afternoon palpitated and throbbed in The Hollow, but the hidden bird did not break it by another call. At last it became evident that Cynthia was beyond the reach of her slave's desires, and so poor Sandy gathered together his flagging strength and spirits and turned toward home with the forlorn hope that he might meet Cynthia on the way there. Now that the parting time had come he knew that the girl was his only real friend on earth in the sense that youth knows a friend. They were near each other, though so far apart. They spoke a common tongue and there were hours when the girl of the Great House and Sandy of the cabin reached across the gulf of tradition and class distinction and opened their souls to each other. During such moments Cynthia had awakened and called forth Sandy's dormant imagination. Through Cynthia he had been shown the beauty of the flowers; been taught the note of the birds and the thrill of life under winter's cold and hard wing. Poverty sharpened the senses of The Hollow people alike in hovel and great house; it drove Miss Ann and Cynthia into close quarters with Ivy and her weird superstitions; it drove Sandy and his kind into dangerous contact with each other, for behind closed doors and in the semi-darkness of the one-windowed cabins evil traits grew apace and the cold and the poor food were fuel for passion and hate.

But no little enchantress met lonely Sandy on his homeward way.

"I reckon I must--go without!" he muttered with something much like a sob in his voice. Not even then did he dream of procrastinating. He was hungry and weary and when he reached the cabin he paused to eat again before going to the rock with his day's earnings. Mary, Molly, and Martin were absent, but that was no new thing. Sandy meant to hide his money, come back and speak to his father and then, by the dark of the moon, start out either with Martin or alone. Grimly the young, tired face set into stern lines; a paleness dimmed his freckles and a fever brightened his eyes, but the heat in his blood, now at the day's end, acted like a stimulant to his thoughts. No longer did he fear or doubt--he had passed that stage and, like a warrior reinforced and exhilarated, he began to whistle confidently and almost joyously. He meant to give Mary her share of his profits, but he would leave them in the box beside the stone that so long had hid his secret.

Over the Branch and up the hill to the woods went Sandy with an uplifted expression on his poor, bruised face and the dignity of his clothing adding a strange touch of age to him. Near the sacred spot he paused and the tune died on his lips. Some one or some thing was stirring just beyond, and, of a sudden, fear and past doubt drove the blood from his heart. His only thought was of Molly! All the years, perhaps, she had deceived and betrayed him. He had, like a coward, failed to count his money; to guard it as he should!

Creeping forward on hands and knees he made his way silently through the bushes. He knew the trick of the beasts; knew how to pad the underbrush beneath his hands before he trusted the weight of his body to it. When within a few feet of the spot whence the sound of moving came, Sandy started up and dashed with one bound into the open. His hands were spread wide with eagerness to grip that which had betrayed him, and so he came upon--Cynthia Walden! He fell back panting, when his brain, at last, interpreted for him what he saw. The girl sat with the tin box of money in her lap; the overturned stone beside her and the last rays of the hot sun filtering through the dogwood trees and pines upon her sweet, pale beauty. By a sharp trick of memory Sandy recalled how the dogwood blossoms one spring long past had looked like stars under the dark pines and now he thought that Cynthia's face was like the pale, starry blossoms. He was always to remember her so when, in the hard years on before, she was to come to him in fancy and longing. A pure girl-face, radiant with hope and bravery, touched, just then, with startled fear which faded into laughing triumph as she recognized Sandy.

"You thought it was--Molly?" she whispered, holding her hands clasped over the box in her lap. "So did I. Once I found her here--found her hunting under one rock after another. I gave her a lick on the back I reckon she has always remembered." The slow, sweet laugh rippled out--"Molly is mighty afraid of me."

Then Sandy managed to command his thought and motions. He stepped to Cynthia and knelt beside her.

"I am going away," he said softly.

"Yes, I know. When?"

"To-night."