being
her own, she hugged it to her bosom and wept over it these twenty
years--became repentant over it--became defiant for it; prayed over it
and clung to it--in short, comported herself as any woman would. And now
Miss Julia, being what she was, stood flushed, her tiding pulses rising
to her eyes, staining her fair skin deep to her very neck, as she faced
her great adventure--as she stood looking into the face she had framed
on her wall, framed on her desk, framed in her heart as well, in silver
and gold and all the brilliants and the gems of a woman's soul.

But she was here by reason of a twofold love. Always in her heart,
since she could remember, there had been the great secondary longing for
something small to love, to hold in her arms--the desire for a child of
her own--the one thing which, as Miss Julia knew, might never be for
her.

Indeed, this great craving had always remained unformulated,
unidentified, until that time, years and years ago, when she first saw
the baby of Aurora Lane lifting up its hands to her. So she had become
one-half a mother, at the least.

He was half her boy, at least, he who now lay in prison. A woman is a
coward as to revealing her love for her chosen mate--she will conceal
that, deny that, to the death. But for the child her love is
different--then she becomes bold--she will defy all the world--will
force herself even into situations otherwise unthinkable. Except for her
love for Don Lane, the fatherless, Miss Julia would never have
undertaken to find a father for him.

But that child had a father! Each must have. Ah! how must the angels
have wept over that piteous spectacle of Miss Julia in her own room,
looking smilingly at the face she saw pictured here in her own hand--the
face of one whom she held to be a great man, a noble man, a man good,
just, wise, one with love and kindness in his heart as well as brawn and
brains in his physical self. Yes, there was a father.... And he was
perfect, heroic, for her; her love being thus much blessed by that
divine blindness love works within us all.

Now, the face which Miss Julia saw in her boudoir, the face which she
saw framed upon the wall of her library room, was the same which she saw
now close at hand! She started, flushed, trembled, finding difference
between a picture and a man.

Judge Henderson was urbane, as always with a woman. He led her to a
seat, taking pains to turn on another clip of the electric light, which
Mis