"Whim-whams, 'Tilda! Now what do you mean in plain American? Who's given the boy a blow—a hurt, or whatever you fancy?"
"It's the—the little girl, brother, that Land has run away with."
"Good God, Matilda!"
"Levi, I do wish you would curb your language. You know how I dislike profanity."
"I beg your pardon, 'Tilda."
"While you have been sensing business conditions, brother, I've sensed something else. I've sort of gathered this Cynthia Walden up piece by piece. The old woman who works here gave me a bit; that dear little woman doctor—the aunt of the girl—has told me some of the story; from Martin Morley I've taken a mite. Little by little it has come to me, until I've patched the whole together and I can see real plain and clear, now, the spirit of Lost Hollow that led Sandy out and up and then—escaped to a place he cannot reach! Oh! brother, when one is lonely and old and not over strong, it is so easy to get at the heart of a thing for them one loves."
Matilda was crying gently into her dainty little handkerchief, and Markham stared at her, speechless and helpless.
"There! there! 'Tilda," was all he could think to say, but his tone was loving beyond description.
"She's the girl whose face haunted that picture of the dogwood flowers, brother. She's the girl he wrote to just once, you remember, that time when we stopped in New York on our way from here to Bretherton. I guess she's called and called to him from these hills ever since he left, and now——"
"Well, 'Tilda?"