"I—reckon I will, mum!"
"Will you promise? Oh! If I have ever done anything to make you grateful, promise! promise!"
"I promise!"
From that night the cure began. Shut away against the mountain-world, favoured by one of the hill storms, prolonged and depressing, the little doctor tested her charm. She was nurse and companion as well as physician. Willing to do battle and take the consequences for the faith that was in her, she wrestled with her problem. Men had proven the thing elsewhere—why not she, here among her dead uncle's people?
"You cannot eat until I tell you to, Martin Morley," she said.
For the first day or so the weakened man, used to deprivation, made no demur; then his haggard face and imploring eyes pleaded for food, and on the third day he asked for it, cried for it like a starving child. This wrung Marcia Lowe's heart.
"Oh! we women," she whispered to herself scornfully; "I declare I must put a watch upon myself or I will find myself going to the cupboard and betraying the faith of Doctor Marcia Lowe!"
Then she resorted to subterfuge, and playfully bullied poor Morley.
"See! If I do not eat, can you not keep me company? What manners have you, Martin Morley, to eat while a lady starves?"
The wretched fellow tried to smile, but wept instead.