d.

"Yes," he thought to himself virtuously, "I'll let Marian have it out
with her conscience or whatever it was that took her from me. I'll
write and tell her I'm waiting up here!"

In the meanwhile Treadwell took a new interest in the mountains,
especially in that part of them known as Trouble Neck. Marcia Lowe and
her "charm" appealed to him hugely.

"Why, it's been introduced in many other places," he said to the little
doctor; "why can't you get your representative at Washington to get an
appropriation for you?"

Marcia Lowe laughed long and merrily at this. "I really do not know
who represents us at Washington," she replied; "it is some distant man,
like as not, with axes galore of his own to grind, with these mystic
votes of the mountains to help along. Doubtless he has a soul above
names, and if a petticoat doctor should go to him and plead her cause
for these people he would probably have me shut up as a maniac. The
Forge doctor is making himself very unpleasant. He told me the other
day that if I persisted in working my charm on many more people he
would have me--investigated! Just fancy! investigating me! He used to
laugh at me; it's got past the laughing stage now. When professional
people step on each other's toes the atmosphere is apt to be electric.
The Forge doctor has at last concluded that I am not a joke. A woman,
to that sort of man, is either a joke or a menace."

Treadwell laughed gayly. Marcia Lowe was a delight to him; besides,
Cynthia Walden was always present when he visited Trouble Neck, and
Cynthia was bewitching. Treadwell did not talk of the girl to Sandy.
He had no special reason for not doing so, but, having posed as a
tragic creature--a man confronting a great soul-problem--he did not
like to come down from his pedestal and stand revealed as a human being
interested in a mountain girl.

"Her smile," he said to Marcia Lowe one day when Cynthia had left the
room for a moment--"how do you account for that?"

"I never account for Cynthia," the little doctor replied. "I just take
her and thank God. She and I live our beautiful little life with mists
all about us. It's very fascinating and inspiring. She is such a
child, and until there is some call to do otherwise, I am going to play
with her. We actually have dolls! Of course there are all sorts of
bones in the cupboard to pass out to the darling, but I'm waiting until
she is hungry."

And so Cynthia played her pa