"Miss Interpreter," Markham dubbed her, and through her he became acquainted with Smith Crothers and Crothers' mark upon recent occurrences. Of course Levi knew of Lans Treadwell's visit to the hills. Markham was not a superstitious man, but he had remarked to Matilda before they came to Lost Hollow that it "looked like the hand of God." After a seance or so at Trouble Neck, Levi changed his mind. "I tell you, Matilda," he confided by her fireside one night after a particularly satisfying day with Sandy, "we take for granted that God Almighty's hand is the only guiding in the final analysis, but the devil gets in a twist now and again, and I guess he had more to do with Lansing's heading up here than God did. Once old Nick got the boy here he did his best to use him, too, but from what I can learn Lans spunked up at the end and showed himself more of a man than we might have expected. He played a good deal of havoc in a few short weeks, though." Marcia Lowe had eliminated Sandy from poor Cynthia's romance or tragedy. She had put a purely commercial valuation upon Crothers' interference, for the look on Sandy's face the night he bade Cynthia good-bye haunted the little doctor and would to the last day of her life. Before it her eyes had fallen, and whenever she recalled the scene a silence fell upon her. No thought or word could express what she, too late, surmised, and her lips guarded the sanctity of Sandy's secret. When Levi confided Marcia Lowe's interpretations to his sister she was very unresponsive. She listened but made no comment other than: "Sandy works too hard. He looks real peaked to me. It don't count to your credit, Levi, or his either, for that matter, if he feels he's got to pay you back in bone and muscle past a certain point." "Now, 'Tilda," Levi put in, "what do you mean by that?" "I mean----" Matilda condensed her impressions: "I think he looks real pinched and peaked." This put Markham on a new track, and the next day he fell upon Sandy with the one weapon which, more than any other, caused Sandy to love and honour him. "See here, son,"--it was oftener "son" than "boy" now--"don't get any fool idea in your head that you owe me more than an eight hour day's work." They were going over the plans of the Home-school as Levi spoke, and Sandy laughed lightly. "You are my agent, my--my promoter, son, and, as such, you hold a responsible position at--at good pay!"