peared.

"Madam," finished Myra Willard, slowly, "a little of the acid that burned
that mother's face fell upon the shoulder of her illegitimate baby."

"God!" exclaimed the artist.

Throughout Myra Willard's story, Mrs. Taine stood like a woman of stone.
At the end, she gazed at the woman's disfigured face, as though fascinated
with horror, while her hands moved to finger the buttons of her dress.
Unconscious of what she was doing, as though under some strange spell,
without removing her gaze from Myra Willard's marred features she opened
the waist of her dress and bared to them her right shoulder. It was marked
by a broad scar like the scars that disfigured the face of her mother.

Myra Willard started forward, impelled by the mother instinct. "My baby,
my poor, poor girl!"

The words broke the spell. Drawing back with an air of cold, unconquerable
pride, the woman looked at Conrad Lagrange. "And now," she said, as she
swiftly rearranged her dress, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me
why you have done this."

Myra Willard turned away to sink into a chair, white and trembling. Aaron
King stepped quickly to her side, and, placing his hand gently on her
shoulder waited for the novelist to speak.

"Miss Willard told you this story because I asked her to," said Conrad
Lagrange. "I asked her to tell you because it gives me the power to
protect the two people who are dearer to me than all the world."

"Still in your role of protector, I see," sneered Mrs. Taine.

"Exactly, madam. It happens that I was a reporter on a certain newspaper
when the incidents just related occurred. I wrote the story for the press.
In fact, it was the story that gave me my start in yellow journalism, from
which I graduated the novelist of your acquaintance. I know the newspaper
game thoroughly, Mrs. Taine. I know the truth of this story that you have
just heard. Permit me to say, that I know how to write in the approved
newspaper style, and to add that my name insures a wide hearing. Proceed
to carry out your threats, and I promise you that I will give this
attractive bit of news, in all its colorful details, to every newspaper in
the land. Can't you see the headlines? 'Startling Revelation,' 'The Secret
of the Beautiful Mrs. Taine's Shoulders,' 'Why a Leader in the Social
World makes Modesty her Fad,' 'The Parentage of a Social Leader.' Do you
understand, madam? Use your influence to interfere with or to hinder Mr.
King in his wor