"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.
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