I made no protest; for I recalled an incident of the days before Evvie’s marriage. She was ill, and her mother had sent hurriedly for me. I went, accompanied by a friend from the region of grand opera and fever-thermometers, who happened to be in the highlands. She applied her thermometer and found that Evvie’s fever was running high. We fumbled about with improvised ministrations until Evvie asked for a “flitter.” Mrs. Kane was mainly worried because the child had eaten nothing since the day before, and when I saw her face light up at Evvie’s request, I hastily withdrew with my friend. “Why did you leave?” she asked. “The child may be killed. Her mother may be ignorant enough to give her that fritter, or whatever she calls it.” “Yes, she is going to get the flitter, and that is why I left. I had to take your disruptive civilized mind off the current. I want Evvie to live.” The next day my friend returned to the patient, expecting, I am sure, to find a house in mourning. Evvie was sitting on the porch stringing beans. Mrs. Kane’s face was luminous. “Evvie got better right away,” she explained, “soon as she et them three flitters I give her.” Remembering that result, and seeing the glaze of resolution on her mother’s face, I meekly became a party to the process of getting Evvie out of the hollow. We formed under Mrs. Kane’s direction: I first, leading the mule, and Evvie in the saddle, leaning back on Tommie’s shoulder, quite safe with his strong little arms about her waist. Mrs. Kane followed, carrying the baby. And so Evvie came home. III Evvie did not lie in bed long after returning to her mother’s house. She sat in shadowy corners, unseeing, uncaring. Milk sometimes would be swallowed when brought to her; but eating required impossible effort. “She don’t hardly know me,” said her mother. “Sometimes I’m ’most afeard of her. She might turn an’ claw me with them hands like chicken feet. She’s jest yeller skin an’ bones, like a quare little old woman.” Judd did not come near her, and we heard of no inquiries on his part. But Cleve came out from Asheville and walked under my apple-trees. “I can’t fight Judd,” he said. “He’s a heavyweight and I’m not. And I won’t gun him. But I know where his blockade still is.” “Oh, Cleve, would you tell?” “No, but it’s hard not to. He’d go to jail, an’ she could get her divorce.” “And he would be out again in six months, to go gunning for _you_. He wouldn’t have your scruples. Besides, Cleve, if Evvie were free, you couldn’t take on a burden like that.” “Burden! Mis’ Dolly, I’d be willin’ to carry Evvie with one arm and do my work with the other. You don’t know how a man feels when there ain’t but one woman fer him an’ another man’s got her--a man ’at wouldn’t pull her out o’ the fire! But I’m goin’ back to Asheville, an’ I won’t try to see her. Here’s my pocketbook. I want you to lend her father some money, and pay yerse’f out o’ this.”