d might well be
made an initial step in the warfare she meant to wage, somehow, some
time, against that man personally, in accordance with the hysterical
threat she had uttered to his face.

The factor that was the immediate cause of her decision on an irregular
mode of life was an editorial in one of the daily newspapers. This was
a scathing arraignment of a master in high finance. The point of the
writer's attack was the grim sarcasm for such methods of thievery as are
kept within the law. That phrase held the girl's fancy, and she read the
article again with a quickened interest. Then, she began to meditate.
She herself was in a curious, indeterminate attitude as far as concerned
the law. It was the law that had worked the ruin of her life, which she
had striven to make wholesome. In consequence, she felt for the law no
genuine respect, only detestation as for the epitome of injustice.
Yet, she gave it a superficial respect, born of those three years of
suffering which had been the result of the penalty inflicted on her. It
was as an effect of this latter feeling that she was determined on one
thing of vital importance: that never would she be guilty of anything
to pit her against the law's decrees. She had known too many hours
of anguish in the doom set on her life because she had been deemed a
violator of the law. No, never would she let herself take any position
in which the law could accuse her.... But there remained the fact that
the actual cause of her long misery was this same law, manipulated by
the man she hated. It had punished her, though she had been without
fault. For that reason, she must always regard it as her enemy, must,
indeed, hate it with an intensity beyond words--with an intensity equal
to that she bore the man, Gilder. Now, in the paragraph she had just
read she found a clue to suggestive thought, a hint as to a means by
which she might satisfy her rancor against the law that had outraged
her--and this in safety since she would attempt nought save that within
the law.

Mary's heart leaped at the possibility back of those three words,
"within the law." She might do anything, seek any revenge, work any
evil, enjoy any mastery, as long as she should keep within the law.
There could be no punishment then. That was the lesson taught by the
captain in high finance. He was at pains always in his stupendous
robberies to keep within the law. To that end, he employed lawyers of
mighty cunning and lear