he horses are taking cold!"

But Honoria still advanced. "You _shall_ speak!"

Joey, catching sight of her from the bed, screamed and hid his face.
To him she was a thing of horror. From the night when, thrust
beneath her eyes, he had cowered by her carriage-step, she had
haunted his worst dreams. And now, black-robed and terrible of face,
she had come to lay hands on him and carry him straight to hell.

"Mother! Take her away! take her away!"

His screams rang through the room. "Hush, dear!" cried Lizzie,
running to him; and laid a hand on his shoulder.

But the child, far too terrified to know whose hand it was, flung
himself from her with a wilder scream than any; flung himself all but
free of the bed-clothes. As Lizzie caught and tried to hold him the
thin night-shirt ripped in her fingers, laying bare the small back
from shoulder to buttock.

They were woman to woman now; cast back into savagery and blindly
groping for its primitive weapons. Honoria crossed the floor not
knowing what she meant to do, or might do. Lizzie sprang to defence
against she knew not what. But when her enemy advanced, towering,
with a healthy boy dragging at her skirts, she did the one thing she
could--turned with a swift cry back upon her own crippled child and
caught at the bed-clothes to cover and hide his naked deformity.

While she crouched and shielded him, silence fell on the room.
She had half expected Honoria to strike her; but no blow came, nor
any sound. By-and-by she looked up. Honoria had come to a
standstill, with rigid eyes. They were fastened on the bed.
Then Lizzie understood.

She had covered the child's legs from sight; but not his back--nor
the brown mole on it--the large brown mole, ringed like Saturn, set
obliquely between the shoulder-blades.

She rose from the bed slowly. Honoria turned on little George with a
gesture as if to fling off his velvet jacket. But Lizzie stamped her
foot.

"No," she commanded hoarsely; "let be. Mine is a cripple."

"So it is true. . . ." Honoria desisted; but her eyes were wide and
still fixed on the bed.

"Yes, it is true. You have all the luck. Mine is a cripple."

Still Honoria stared. Lizzie gulped down something in her throat;
but her voice, when she found it again, was still hoarse and
strained.

"And now--go! You have learnt what you came for. You have won,
because you stop at nothing. But go, before I try to kill you for
the joy in your hear