"I mistook you for one of the nurses here; and, as you didn't seem busy, I thought you might give me some statistics about the Home not really statistics, you know, but local color." Sister Anne returned his look with one as steady as his own.

Apparently she was weighing his statement.

She seemed to disbelieve it.

Inwardly he was asking himself what could be the dark secret in the past of this young woman that at the mere approach of a reporter--even of such a nice-looking reporter as himself--she should shake and shudder.

"If that's what you really want to know," said Sister Anne doubtfully, "I'll try and help you; but," she added, looking at him as one who issues an ultimatum, "you must not say anything about me!" Sam knew that a woman of the self-advertising, club-organizing class will always say that to a reporter at the time she gives him her card so that he can spell her name correctly; but Sam recognized that this young woman meant it.