“Yes, I’ve found out the whole history of The Painted Lady,” he was saying; “she’s all that Old Lady Burton says, and more. She’s been living down at the Rapids for a year or two; and I saw Jack Denvers when I was down there last week, and he gave me the whole story. She was a skirt-dancer among other things when she was young, and some way got her hooks onto a young fellow from Sioux City named Sloan. He came from a fine family, and his people were all broken up over the affair, for she proved a bad lot, I reckon. She ran away from him before they had been married a year, and has been going down the line ever since. Denvers says that if she stops up here the married women would better watch out. She’s the woman that was mixed up in the Stanley divorce case down at the Rapids last year; and they say she got--Hello! what’s the matter with Billy? Same old story?” Alarmed, for I had not the slightest idea that The Boy was there, I turned and saw him staggering blindly from the room. He ran against a hat-tree, and some of the men laughed, but I saw his face, and I knew that it was not the drink that made him look so ghastly. I hurried up to the card-room where the Colonel was playing his evening game of whist, and, whispering a word in his ear, I got him into an alcove and told him what had just taken place. “Good God! this is horrible,” he muttered; “why, it’s his own mother, and he knows it.” We hastened from the club, but there were no carriages in sight outside. “The Boy just staggered out bareheaded, and drove off toward his hotel in the only cab here,” said Perkins, who was coming up the steps. “What’s the matter with him? I spoke to him, but he didn’t answer. Stewed again?” We did not stop to satisfy his curiosity, but walked rapidly up to the Algonquin. “He went up-stairs about ten minutes ago,” the clerk told us in answer to our question, and grinned knowingly. The door of his room was not locked, and after knocking several times without getting any reply, we went in, and found just what I had feared we should find, The Boy lying face downwards on the floor, one hand clasping a discharged revolver. I looked at the powder-stained cheek, and though I felt that it was absolutely hopeless, I left the Colonel kneeling by his side, and hurried out in search of a doctor. As I stood by the front door hesitating which way to go, a trap was driven up under the electric lights, and a beardless youth in lieutenant’s uniform helped a loudly-dressed woman to alight. They walked through the foyer, and entered the elevator laughing and talking, while a little yellow dog, covered with ribbons, capered and barked in front of them. It was The Painted Lady--and another boy. THE PALACE OF SIN. THE PALACE OF SIN. The following advertisement, even had it ever appeared in any of the great dailies, would probably have occasioned little comment or curiosity:--