sit an hour. That is all he will count upon; and before he seeks
anything nearer I'll have him under my foot as now he has me under his.
When that hour comes," concluded Mr. Harley, rapping out a sudden great
oath that made Dorothy start in her frock, "there will be no saving
limits in his favor. I'll apply the torch, and burn him like so much
refuse off the earth."

When Mrs. Hanway-Harley endeavored to break Dorothy to the yoke of her
ambitions concerning Storri, Dorothy sparkled and blazed and wept and
did those divers warlike things that ladies do when engaged in conflict
with each other. Dorothy, down in her heart, attached no more than a
surface importance to the efforts of Mrs. Hanway-Harley; and that was
the reason why on those fierce occasions she only sparkled and blazed
and wept. Now, be it known, what Mr. Harley told her seared like hot
iron; what he asked of kindness to Storri and cruelty to Richard cut
like a knife; and yet there was never tear nor spark to show throughout.
She waited cold and white and steady. Dorothy was convinced of her
father's danger without knowing its cause or what form it might take;
and she filled up with a resolution to do whatever she could, saving
only the acceptance of Storri and his love, to buckler him against it.
Nor was this difference which Dorothy made between Mrs. Hanway-Harley
and Mr. Harley to be marveled at; for just as a mother exerts more
influence over a son than would his father, so will a father have weight
with a daughter beyond any that her mother might possess.

While Dorothy remained firm and brave as Mr. Harley revealed his
troubles and their remedy, she broke down later when she found herself
in her own room. She did not call her maid; she must be alone. What had
transpired began to come over her in such slow fashion that she was
given time to fully feel the ignoble position into which she had fallen.
She must not see the man whom she adored; she must meet--with politeness
even if she could not with grace--the man whom she loathed. To one of
Dorothy's spirit and fineness there dwelt in this an infamy, a baseness,
of which Mr. Harley with his lucky coarseness of fiber escaped all
notice.

Throwing herself on the bed, Dorothy burrowed her face in the pillow and
gave her tears their way. It was the happiest impulse she could have
had; when the tears were dried, and in the calm of that relief which was
their afterglow, she considered what she had to do. Oh!