"No one knows but what Cynthia was here all last night," she said. "I've lied to Tod Greeley. I told him you had not taken Cynthia; that she was ill with headache." "Now!" Cynthia laughed lightly; "you see we need not have done that silly thing at Sudley's Gap." Marcia Lowe began to cry softly. "Oh! dear," she faltered, "but Smith Crothers knows and Sandy Morley, too. Oh! I have been so blind, so foolish, and you have been such mad children." "I am going to Sandy at once," Lans explained. The plain common-sense atmosphere of the cabin and the little doctor's evident suffering were calming Treadwell's hot Southern blood and giving a touch of stern prosaic grimness to the business. Cynthia, once she was safe with Marcia Lowe, was so unflatteringly happy that Lans Treadwell might well be pardoned for thinking her lacking in ordinary mentality, and this thought was like a dash of ice water on his growing chilliness. He became awkward and nervous. He felt like a man who had run headlong to a goal only to find that it was the wrong one, with no strength or power to retrace his steps he owed to defeat and failure, and in that mood he sought Sandy. CHAPTER XXIII Marcia Lowe was mistaken. Sandy did not know. He knew that Treadwell had not returned the evening before, but Tansey Moore, who was now manager of Crothers' new factory, had told him that Treadwell had gone to look up a piece of land back of Sudley's Gap, and the storm had naturally detained him. The sudden growth of intimacy between Crothers and Lans surprised and amused Sandy. Full well he realized Crothers' motive, and he could afford to laugh at that, but he felt annoyed and hurt at Lans's weak falling into the trap. The disloyalty to himself did not affect Sandy, he was far too sensible and simple a man to care deeply for that, and it somehow made it easier for him to reconcile his conscience to the growing distrust and contempt he had for Treadwell, but he disliked the idea of Crothers using his friend to gain his mean ends. "Lans is not one to tie up to," he said to himself, and then smiled at the quaint expression which he had learned from Levi. "And to-morrow I will tell him that I must make ready for the Markhams." The day after Cynthia's marriage Sandy had gone early to the buildings. He and Martin had worked hard; settled a difficulty among the men, which they both felt confident Crothers had instigated, and, upon reaching home late in the afternoon Sandy was told that Old Andrew Townley was ill and wanted him. Liza Hope had sent word.