Molly shrank from his path and Mary gazed after him in sullen amazement. Led by some intuition, Martin strode down the path leading to the Branch and, just as he crossed the almost-dry stream bed, he saw, on the hill opposite, Sandy coming toward him. The boy stopped as he caught sight of his father and waited at the edge of the woods. His brief rest had refreshed him and the cool evening breeze, bearing a shower in its keeping, calmed his aching head and feverish body. Martin noticed how white and haggard the boy looked and some instinct warned him to hide the whip behind his back. When he reached Sandy the two stepped back to where a log lay across the path and upon that Martin dropped, while Sandy braced against a tree. "Whar was yo' going?" asked Morley. "Home, Dad. I wanted to see you--and then----" "Well----" "I'm going away!" "Going away?" "Come, too, Dad! Come and let us fight it out together. She----" The boy's eyes, haunted and fierce, turned toward the home place. "She don't belong to us or with us. I don't know how better to say it--but she don't. She won't mind; no one will mind after the first. I've got to go and--I want you! I've been saving and saving little by little for years--there's enough now and we can go to-night. Out beyond--somewhere--Dad, there's something better for us than--this. By and by we'll come back. We'll come and help----" and a sob choked the words; "we'll come and help all Lost Hollow. Somehow I feel--called!" Martin Morley stared at the boy before him as though he saw a ghost. And indeed a ghost of the grim past did confront him. He saw himself as he once was ere his Inheritance was downed forever. He, too, had wanted to break away; get out to the free chance and the new hope. "You can't do it!" he said in a faint voice to that ghost of himself standing opposite in the darkening shadows. "There's something as allus holds us-all from getting away. It began back there in grandfather's day--it's settled on us-all like a death grip." Sandy listened as if already he was far and apart from all the sordid, little hampering things that made up the life of Lost Hollow. "What did--grandfather do?" he asked, like one who had no special interest in the matter. "It was my grandfather, he was the friend of Lansing Hertford. They said he betrayed his friend--but they-all lied. First it was a whisper, then in your grandfather's time they-all spoke louder. The lie took away the faith of men from us-all and--that ended it! The lie slinks low till some Morley raises his head and then it springs up and strikes him down." "It will not strike me down!" Sandy, weak and forlorn, straightened against the tree with the darkness almost blotting him from the eyes fastened tenderly on his face, spoke firmly. "I'll kill the lie whatever it was! What did they say, Dad?"