"I wish you wouldn't think so much about Dick!" There was irritation in the girl's tone and dropping her banter Mrs. Pickens gave assurance of her willingness to be of any service. "I suppose you want me to speak for your character," she went on, "and I can certainly answer for your disposition. You're the easiest person to get along with I ever met. But Bob's mother is the one to testify to your ability with children. You've been a godsend to her this spring. How the child has waked up. He's much brighter and more interesting than before you came."
Stirring a little in her chair, leaning against the window to look out into the approaching night, Hertha made no answer to her friend's praises and seemed to have forgotten the request that she had just made. After a little she said slowly, "I had a brother——"
"Had a brother? Why do you speak in the past? Nothing has happened to him, has there?"
"No, oh, no, but Bob makes me think of him when he was little, when he belonged to me. A little child belongs to you. Partly for that reason I'd like to be with little children."
"I'll do what I can to help you, but why not get references also from the South?"
The question was asked hesitatingly and with no small amount of inquisitiveness. The mystery of Hertha's past, that mystery that so deeply interested Dick, was growing in importance to his landlady. Perhaps this evening in the friendly dark she might be able to probe it. Despite her hope, she expected some monosyllabic reply followed by a silence that would prevent a continuance of the subject. She was totally unprepared for Hertha's frank answer.
"You can see," the girl said, "that I have no connections now in the South. No one writes to me."
"Yes?" Mrs. Pickens ventured. Her voice was tender, sympathetic, trembling with curiosity.
Hertha said nothing further but looked out where the lamps had been lighted and glowed golden against the deep trees. Fearing lest she might lose the confidential talk she was expecting, the older woman continued gently: "I've often wondered what separated you from your people. Do you want to tell me what it was?"
"Some one's sin."