“From time to time the wise and strong men of the city banded together and sallied forth to drive back other creatures of prey as they pressed too hard upon the people. Not so with the Monster. Because of the ban of silence no plan could be mooted, no campaign formulated to check his inroads. So he grew great and ever greater, and his blood hunger fierce and ever more fierce, and his scarlet trail wound in and out among the homes of the people, manifest even to those eyes which most sedulously sought to blind themselves against it. “Seldom did the Monster slay outright. But where his claws clutched or his fangs pierced, a slow venom crept through the veins, and life was corroded at its very wellsprings. Nor was this the worst. Once the blight fell upon one member of a household, it might corrupt, by hidden and subtle ways, the others and innocent, who knew not of the curse overhanging them. “Upon the foolish, the reckless, and the erring the Monster most readily fastened himself. But man nor woman nor child was exempt. Necessity drove young girls, struggling and shuddering, into the Monster’s very jaws. The purity of a child or of a Galahad could not always save from the serpent-stroke which sped from out the darkness.” “One moment, Strong,” broke in Mr. Clyde. “You’ve read this before?” “I know what is in it, if that is what you mean. Why?” “Nothing,” hesitated the other, glancing toward his wife and her mother. “Only, I suspect it isn’t going to be pleasant.” “It isn’t pleasant. It’s true.” Grandma Sharpless laid down her cards. “Let him go on, Tom,” she said decisively. “We have no ban of silence in this house.” At a nod from Clyde, the Health Master continued:— “Always the taboo of silence hedged the Monster about and protected him; and men secretly revolted against it, yet were restrained from speech by the fear of public dishonor. So, in time, he came to have a Scarlet Court of Shame, with his retinue of slaves, whose duty it was to procure victims for his insatiate appetite. But this service availed his servitors nothing in forbearance, for, sooner or later, his breath of fiery venom blasted and withered them, one and all. “One refuge only did the people seek against the Monster. At every doorpost of the city stood a veiled statue of the supposed Goddess and Protectress of the Household, worshiped under the name of _Modesty_, and to her the people appealed for succor and protection. Also they invoked her vengeance against such as spoke the name of the Monster, and bitter were the penalties wrought upon these in her name. Nevertheless there arose martyrs whose tongues could not be silenced by any fear.