"Yes, I was kind. I meant to be. I liked you, and trusted you. I gave you my children to nurse.—Mahaly, only once—no, twice—in my life have I trusted people, and had them fail me."
"The other time was Mr. Bas," whispered the woman. "I knows. It didn't—never do to trus'—Mr. Bas."
Her dying eyes followed Kate's to the picture, and dwelt upon it wistfully.
Once more the lady changed the subject. "Will you tell me why you tried to hate me, Mahaly?" She paused. "Was it because you were—jealous of me?"
The reply had a certain dignity. "It ain't fitten—for a yaller gal—to be jealous—of a w'ite pusson."
"Then, why?"
There was a silence. Gropingly the colored woman's hand went to a table at her side, and held out to Kate a tintype photograph in a faded pink paper cover. Kate looked at it. She saw Mahaly as she had been in the days of her youth, comely and graceful; in her arms a small, beady-eyed boy. The pride of motherhood was unmistakable.
"Your baby! Why, I never knew you had a baby." She looked closer, and her voice softened. "A cripple, like my little Katherine. Poor little fellow! Oh, Mahaly, did he die?"
There was a dull misery in the answer that went to her heart. "I dunno. I couldn't—never fin' out."
"You don't know?"