torri, only more a-droop, Mr. Harley
owned no wish for company.

Mr. Harley was thus broken to the ground when Storri's message found
him. The threat at the tail, like the sting at the tail of a scorpion,
stunned Mr. Harley past thinking. He could neither do nor plan; he could
only utter his despair in groans.

Two hours later, and while he lay writhing, Richard's inclosure of the
French shares arrived by post. Mr. Harley at sight of them came as near
fainting as any gentleman coarsely grained and hearty ever comes. Ten
minutes went by in stupid gazing, and in handling and feeling those
certificates that were to him as is the reprieve that comes to one who
else would die within the hour.

There is such a thing as compensation, and the very coarseness of which
you have now and again complained made most for the rescue of Mr. Harley
at this crisis. By dint of that valuable coarseness, Mr. Harley,
discovering that he could trust his eyes,--he at one time doubted those
visual organs,--recovered such strength, not to say composure, that he
ordered up a quart of burgundy and drank it by the goblet. Under this
wise treatment, and with the reassuring shares in his clutch, Mr. Harley
became a new man.

The first evidence of this newness given to the world was when at eight
o'clock Mr. Harley, faultlessly caparisoned and in full evening dress,
descended upon Mrs. Hanway-Harley and Dorothy. The ladies were together
in the back drawing-room as the restored Mr. Harley, with brow of Jove
and warlike eye, strode into their startled midst. Establishing himself
in mighty state before the fireplace, rear to the blaze, he gazed with
fondness, but as though from towering altitudes, on Dorothy.

"Come and kiss me, child!" said Mr. Harley.

Dorothy obeyed without daring to guess the cause of this abrupt
affection.

"You act strangely, Mr. Harley!" commented Mrs. Hanway-Harley, with a
tinge of severity. "I hope you will compose yourself. It is quite
possible that Count Storri will drop in!"

"Madam," shouted Mr. Harley explosively, "I shall shoot that scoundrel
Storri if he puts hand to my front gate!"

"John!" screamed Mrs. Hanway-Harley.

"Madam, I shall shoot him like a rat!"

Mr. Harley got this off with such fury that it struck Mrs. Hanway-Harley
speechless. She was the more amazed, since she knew nothing of either
Mr. Harley's wrongs or his burgundy. After surveying her with the utmost
majesty for a moment, Mr. Harley came