She had been in her day rather a handsome creature, with the straight hair and high features that indicate a not unusual admixture of Indian blood. But though she must have been of about the same age as Mrs. Kildare, she looked by comparison withered and superannuated, with the grayish film across her eyes that one sees in those of aged animals. These blurred eyes stared at Kate with a queer hostility, mixed with something else; as they had stared on the day she came a bride to Storm. She made a slight, futile attempt to rise. "Nonsense, Mahaly! Don't move," said the Madam, kindly. "This is no time for manners." She closed the door behind her, and would have closed the window had it not been for the woman's need of air and the inevitable faint odor that clings about negro habitations, no matter how cleanly they are kept. What she and her old servant had to say to each other must not be overheard. Fancying that she detected sounds as of some one moving on the porch outside, she called briefly: "Keep out of ear-shot, please." She was too accustomed to obedience to investigate results. "You wanted to see me, Mahaly?" she said. "You wanted to explain something to me, perhaps?" The woman struggled with her laboring breath. She was very near the end. Kate found it painful to look at her, and her gaze wandered away to the crayon portraits on the wall. The one over the bed, in the place of honor, was a portrait of her husband, Basil Kildare. Her face hardened. This was an impertinence! And yet.... Mahaly was speaking. "You-all ain't--found the French doctor yet--is you?" "No. We will not discuss that, if you please.... Mahaly, we may never see each other again, you and I. Will you tell me now how you came--to hate me so bitterly?" Mahaly's eyes dropped. "I never! I tried to, but--I couldn't, Miss Kate. You was--so kin' to me." "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?"