After that, Marcia Lowe rarely left the room; never unless Morley slept. She stole like a thief to her closet and ate her food when, and as she could.
"It's the nurse of Martin Morley who refreshes herself," she thought comfortingly.
It was on the fifth evening of the battle with the deadly foe of the mountain poor-whites, that Marcia Lowe heard a knock upon her cabin door. So alone and absorbed had she been for the past few days that a demand from the outer world startled and annoyed her. Martin was sleeping—he lay in the lean-to chamber—so on tiptoe the little doctor went to answer the summons.
The storm had passed unnoticed by Marcia Lowe, and a bright starry heaven lay behind the tall figure of Tod Greeley on the doorstep.
"Oh! Come in, come in!" whispered Marcia—and oddly enough she felt a glow of relief and welcome. Greeley came in and grimly took a chair by the cheerful fire on the ashless hearth.
"I've come on a mighty unpleasant errand, ma'am," he said; "and I ain't one as can pass around sweets before the bitters."
All the way to Trouble Neck Greeley had arranged this speech, and the medical flavour of it had given him courage.
"You're very kind to come yourself, Mr. Greeley," Marcia Lowe was smiling; "another might not have been so welcome. And now for the bitter! I'll gulp it bravely, for I like sweets better."
She sat down in her own rough little rocker, and swayed calmly to and fro.
"Well, mum, the County Club, in session down to the store, delegated me to call on you. Leastway, I done told them I reckoned no one else but me should come first!"