What a hideous and damnable mockery! This was the monument of that good kind man, the late Mr. Barradine. Every red tile, every dab of white paint, every square inch of clean gravel, gave substance and solidity to the lasting fame of that dear sweet gentleman. Visitors to the neighborhood always stopped their carriages or motor cars outside the Orphanage gates, questioned and gaped, sent in their cards, begged for permission to go all over it. Inside, no doubt they admired the rows of clean white beds, some of them quite little cots, others big enough for almost full-grown bouncing lasses; they stood with hushed breath before his portrait in the refectory hall or his bust on the stairs; and perhaps they patted the cheeks of some pretty inmate and asked if, when saying her prayers, she always included the name of the patron saint. On high occasions clergymen and bishops came, there to hiccough and weep over his blessed memory. Great lords and ladies praised him, newspaper writers praised him, ignorant fools in cottages praised him; and to high and low the crowning grace of his glorious charity was the selection of the softer, gentler, and too often downtrodden sex as the object of such tender care. That was what set the sentimental rivers flowing. It proved the innate gentleness and sweetness of him who was now an angel in Heaven. When it came to choosing the guests for the lovely home he had built in his mind, he had said: "I will not fill it with a lot of hulking boys. Boys are naturally rough and coarse animals, and can generally fight their way out on top, no matter how stiff the struggle. Give me so many graceful delicate girls; pretty helpless things, dainty little innocent fascinating creatures; not necessarily fatherless girls, but unprotected girls--girls that grievously need protection." And Dale thought how the man, when he was alive, dealt with any innocent unprotected girl who chanced to fall into his power. In imagination he saw him taking care of Mavis, when she was young and tender, and scarcely knew right from wrong. In imagination he saw it all again--the pattings and pawings, the scheming and devising, the luring and ensnaring--Barradine and Mavis--the man of many years and the girl of few years, the serpent and the dove, the destroyer and the destroyed. Those torturing mental pictures glowed and took form, and were as vivid now as when, in the hour of his grief and despair, he first made them and saw them.