k; or fail to use your influence to contradict the lies
you have already started about the character of Miss Andres; and I will
use the influence of my pen and the prestige of my name to put you before
the eyes of the world for what you are."

For a moment the woman looked at him, defiantly. Then, as she grasped the
full significance of what he had said, she slowly bowed her head.

Conrad Lagrange opened the door.

As she went out, the woman with the disfigured face started forward,
holding out her hands appealingly.

Mrs. Taine did not look back, but went quickly toward the big automobile
that was waiting in front of the house.

Chapter XLII

Aaron King's Success

The winter months were past.

Aaron King was sitting before his finished picture. The colors were still
fresh upon the canvas that, to-day, hangs in an honored place in one of
the great galleries of the world. To the last careful touch, the artist
had put into his painted message, the best he had to give. Back of every
line and brush-stroke there was the deep conviction of a worthy motive.
For an hour, he had been sitting there, before the easel, brush and
palette in hand, without touching the canvas. He could do no more.

Laying aside his tools, he went to his desk, and took from the drawer,
that package of his mother's letters. He pushed a deep arm-chair in front
of his picture, and again seated himself. As he read letter after letter,
he lifted his eyes, at almost every sentence from the written pages to his
work. It was as though he were submitting his picture to a final test--as,
indeed, he was. He had reached the last letter when Conrad Lagrange
entered the studio; Czar at his heels.

Every day, while the picture was growing under the artist's hand, his
friend had watched it take on beauty and power. He did not need to speak
of the finished painting, now.

"Well, lad," he said, "the old letters again?"

The artist, caressing the dog's silky head as it was thrust against his
knee, answered, "Yes, I finished the picture two hours ago. I have been
having a private exhibition all on my own hook. Listen." From the letter
in his hand he read:

"It is right for you to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you
otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the
distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on
the highway of life--a mere loafer by the wayside--slothful,
indolent--slipping easily