"Will you marry me, Sandy, like they do in books?"

"If--if--that is the best way, yes."

"Oh! it always is! It's a mighty fine way, because then no one can--make you do things. I shall make you do whatever I choose, Sandy--will you mind?"

"No."

"You know in my book, Sandy, there is a Madam Bubble and I'm making myself like her. You can make yourself into anything, I reckon, Sandy, if you just _will_, and dream about it. Listen to me!" Cynthia had Sandy by the shoulders now in frank, playful mood. "I am tall and comely--I looked up the word, and it says it means to be agreeable and good-looking. Well, I'm good-looking--or I'm going to be. Then the book says Madam Bubble speaks smoothly and smiles at the end of a sentence. I've tried and tried and now I can smile that way. Look, Sandy!"

Again Sandy forced himself to fasten his eyes on the sweet, tender mouth.

"I love to smile, Sandy."

Suddenly the girl's gay tone changed; she came back to grim facts with a catch in her voice.

"How I shall miss you, Sandy. The woods will be right empty--till you come again! I shall make believe find you on the hills even when I know you are not here, but always I will be able to see you in the Significant Room! I'm going to study and make myself fit for you--I shall be right busy. I am going to ask Aunt Ann to let me learn of the little doctor. I shall study the books you have and--it won't seem long, Sandy!"

The brave attempt at cheer, the tender renunciation in the soft voice, wrung Sandy's heart.

"I'm sorry I hated the little doctor for teaching you, Sandy. She helped you--to--to come back quicker, only I did not know then. She'll help me now, I reckon, to be ready for you. Sandy, I just couldn't see you go down The Way! You stand here like you were going to stay on forever and I'll run down the trail. I won't look back once, Sandy, but--kiss me good-bye."

It was the little Cyn of the past playful days who pleaded so pathetically--forgetting caste and dividing line. The little Cyn who had always clung to her comrade when danger or fear threatened; but behind the childish words rang the woman's alluring sweetness--the woman little Cyn was some time to be. By a mighty effort Sandy Morley bent and kissed the pretty upturned mouth. The rough, unlovely clothing could not disguise the dignity of the stiff, boyish form; the bluish bruise on his face grew darker as the hot blood surged through it, but the clear, boyish eyes were frank and simple at last as the:

"Good-bye, Cynthia!" rang sharply.

There was one look more, full of brave sorrow, then Cynthia turned abruptly and ran like a wild thing of the woods into the shadow of the pines.

Sandy stood and watched her, with his thin face twitching miserably, until the sound of her going died away; then he groaned and bent to pick up the box of money that had lain unheeded while bigger things had been conceived and born. Slowly, mechanically he counted the small fortune to the last piece, then he placed two half dollars in the box and left it where any one could easily find it. Poor Sandy was beyond suffering now, or indeed beyond any sensation except that of dull action. His head was aching excruciatingly; fever throbbed in his body and a heavy weariness overcame him. He would rest before he went to his father!

Sinking to the ground he leaned against the tree under which Cynthia had stood and, for a moment, lost consciousness.

CHAPTER V

"So you've come home to be fed, eh?"

Martin Morley slunk into a chair and eyed the woman by the cook-stove ingratiatingly.

"I sho' have," he replied; "it smells like ash cakes, and I've brought a bucket of buttermilk from ole Mis' Walden's place. She certainly is a techersome woman but a powerful good manager."

"Where's the buttermilk?"

"Outside the do'!"

"Run and fetch it, Molly."

The child, glaring at Martin, sprang to do her mother's bidding and as she passed Morley he seemed to note, for the first time in his life, her fantastic beauty. And then Morley stared after her--she looked like _his_ mother! With the thought a blush of shame rose to his thin, sallow face.

His mother! Between his mother and him lay a black abyss. What right had anything, holding part in that shadow, to look like his mother? He arose and almost snatched from the child the pail she had brought in.

"Hyar!" he cried, "let me take that, you're slopping it over the floor.

Whar's yo' brother?"

With this Mary Morley turned from her task with hot, blazing face? She had been handsome once--but the fleeting beauty was gone.

"Sho'! _whar's_ that blessed son of yours?" Mary screamed. "You better go and find out. Do you know what the brat has been doing all these years? Years, I say! While we-all have been slaving and starving he's been saving up; cheating us-all out of his earnings. Eating us-all out of house and home while he--saved and glutted!"

Martin stared at the woman as if she were speaking a foreign language.

"Who--tole yo?" he asked vaguely, hoping by the question to clarify the moment's confusion.

"Molly, she don' keep her eye on him fo' years! It's under a stone beyond the Branch--dollars and dollars while we-all done without."

"Whar did he--get it?"

"He only gave us part of what he earned--he made us-all fools while he hid the rest."

This was too bewildering for Martin and he looked helplessly at the girl who had been informer. The bold little face of Molly confronted him with something like fear in it.

"He'll sho' kill me!" she whined, "him and that--that Cynthia Walden."

This latter betrayal was new to Mary Morley and she came forward angrily.

"None of your lying!" she commanded--"nobody's going to hurt you so long as you tell the truth. What has the Walden girl got to do with the stolen money?"

"She watched it! She licked me right smart once because I--tried to find out how much there was. She told me she'd kill me sho' if I let on and I ain't till to-day when ma said she'd send me down to Miss Lowe's to larn things if she only had money to buy me some shoes. Why should Sandy have that money and me no shoes?"

Why he yearned to lay the lash on the girl before him, Martin could not tell, but she filled him with savage anger. She looked so mean, so hard and--young! Then he tried to think it was Sandy with whom he was angered. He had left the boy to his own devices, to be sure, but--hidden money and the Walden girl aroused a sudden hot fear in him.

"You lie!" he cried in a tone that for many a day Mary, with her growing power over him, had not heard. "You-all lie; you're a lying lot. I'll find the boy----" Martin reached up and took down a lash whip which hung beneath an old rusted sword on the wall. "I'll find the boy and the truth, and by heaven! the sneak and liar, whoever he may be, will get a taste of this!" He snapped the lash sharply.

Molly shrank from his path and Mary gazed after him in sullen amazement. Led by some intuition, Martin strode down the path leading to the Branch and, just as he crossed the almost-dry stream bed, he saw, on the hill opposite, Sandy coming toward him. The boy stopped as he caught sight of his father and waited at the edge of the woods. His brief rest had refreshed him and the cool evening breeze, bearing a shower in its keeping, calmed his aching head and feverish body.

Martin noticed how white and haggard the boy looked and some instinct warned him to hide the whip behind his back. When he reached Sandy the two stepped back to where a log lay across the path and upon that Martin dropped, while Sandy braced against a tree.

"Whar was yo' going?" asked Morley.

"Home, Dad. I wanted to see you--and then----"

"Well----"

"I'm going away!"

"Going away?"

"Come, too, Dad! Come and let us fight it out together. She----" The boy's eyes, haunted and fierce, turned toward the home place. "She don't belong to us or with us. I don't know how better to say it--but she don't. She won't mind; no one will mind after the first. I've got to go and--I want you! I've been saving and saving little by little for years--there's enough now and we can go to-night. Out beyond--somewhere--Dad, there's something better for us than--this. By and by we'll come back. We'll come and help----" and a sob choked the words; "we'll come and help all Lost Hollow. Somehow I feel--called!"

Martin Morley stared at the boy before him as though he saw a ghost.