Part 67 (1/2)

”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?”

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?_”

”Mr. Bas done sent him away--when you was comin'. He was real kin'--to him before, though he wa'n't never one--to have po'ly folks about, much.

But when you--was comin'--he done sent him away, an' he wouldn't never tell me--whar to.”

”Mahaly! _Why_ did he send him away?”

Kate had risen, in her horror of what she knew was coming.

”Bekase he looked--too much--like his--paw,” said Mahaly, and she spoke with pride....

Kate put her hands over her eyes. She remembered the sense of something sinister that had come to her when she first saw Storm; recalled the mystery which had hung about the mulatto girl, and which she had not quite dared to probe; the innuendoes of old Liza, from the first her ally and henchman; Mahaly's later pa.s.sionate and hungry devotion to her own children. She remembered the fate, too, of Basil's hound Juno, and her mongrel pups.

”No wonder you hated me,” she whispered, shuddering. ”No wonder you hated me! To think that even he could have done such a thing!--Oh, but, Mahaly, how was I to know? How could you have blamed me?”

”I never. Only I 'lowed--that ef you was to git sent away--fum Sto'm--mebbe he would lemme have my baby--back agin.” Mahaly's voice was getting very weak. She began fighting the air with her hands.

Kate dipped her handkerchief quickly into a gla.s.s of water and laid it on the woman's face. ”No more talking now,” she said, and would have gone for help; but the negress caught at her hand.

”Got--suthin' mo'--to say--fust--” she gasped painfully. ”Miss Kate!--the French doctor didn't--kill him--”

”_What?_”

”I seed. I was--hidin' in de bushes--waitin' to speak to Mr. Bas” (only an iron effort of will made the words audible), ”an' I riz up--out'n de bushes--when I yeard 'em quar'lin'--and dat skeert de hoss--an' he ra'red up and threw--Mr. Bas off. De French doctor done flung--a rock, yes'm--but it ain't--never--teched him--”