wn superior
cleverness, Storri told the San Reve how he trapped Mr. Harley into
forging his name to the French shares.

"There is my weapon!" cried the triumphant Storri. "With that I may
smite them when I choose! To-morrow, within the hour, I could have this
scoundrel Harley in a criminal's cell! Some day I shall do that.
Meanwhile, he knows; the proud girl knows. It is for vengeance I go to
the Harleys', my San Reve, not love. I sit at their table, I eat their
food, I drink their wine; and I laugh and I gloat over them--these
little people! Yes, my San Reve, the hand of the coward Harley shakes as
he lifts his glass; the fair, proud Dorothy shows me my triumph in her
whitened cheek and frightened eye. And best of all, the empty chatter of
the magpie Mrs. Hanway-Harley--who knows nothing, being a fool! It is
that magpie chatter to be poison in the ears of the others! Oh, you
should behold them, my San Reve! You should witness how they writhe and
how they tremble in the presence of your Storri!"

The San Reve listened, but the gloom hung low on her brow. She did not
believe her Storri who said he ate a weekly dinner for revenge. Yes, he
had obtained a mastery over Mr. Harley; he had forced his way into the
company of Dorothy and shut the door on Richard! The San Reve shook her
jealous head; that was not vengeance, that was love.

And Storri would succeed, too! This Dorothy would come to love him as
she, the San Reve, loved. Dorothy was a woman; and what woman could
resist Storri? This Dorothy loved him even now; her coldness was an
attitude, a fiction. It was meant to be a lure to Storri and whet his
eagerness!

These were the thoughts like living coals which the San Reve hid in her
heart. But while her head whirled, and her sight was blurred, and her
pulses set a-throb with the jealous storms that swept her, it was
wonderful to note how the San Reve's office-trained mind seized upon and
registered those French shares. It was those shares that constituted
Storri's hold upon the Harleys. Could she break the hold? Those shares
were the locks of her Samson. Oh, if she might but shear the locks! Then
she would have her Storri again--in his weakness she would have him. The
San Reve knitted her brows.

* * * * *

These days of separation were more easily borne by Richard than by
Dorothy. Richard was rich in a dogged fortitude common enough with men.
Moreover, he had his work, and he went