'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