a shudder; not from any morality, but his
instant common sense showed how insane it would be as a method of
escape, and with that he shrunk back from it as from a precipice. And
yet there was to be no standing still; he must push on in some
direction.

Mr. Harley, being himself a business soul, did not omit to consider how
far Storri might be held at bay by showing him the certain destruction
of Credit Magellan, should he persist to the bitter length of forgery
charges and open war. Mr. Harley might be disgraced, destroyed; but what
then? Storri's plans would assuredly be trampled flat; millions, about
to come into his hands, would be swept away.

These, as arguments to be addressed to Storri, no sooner entered the
mind of Mr. Harley than he dismissed them as offering no solution of his
perils. He had felt, rather than seen, the barbarism of Storri beneath
the tissue of what that nobleman would have styled his elegant
refinement. Storri was a coward, and therefore Storri was malignant; he
had shown, as he went promising disgrace to Mr. Harley, that petulance
of evil which is remarked in savages and cruel children. Storri was
dominated of a passion for revenge; under sway of that passion no chance
of money-loss would stay him; he would sacrifice all and begin his
schemes anew before he would deny himself those vainglorious triumphs
upon which he had set his heart. He hated Richard; he hungered for
Dorothy; and Mr. Harley knew how he would go to every extravagant extent
in feeding those two sentiments.

Mr. Harley sighed dismally as he reviewed these conclusions; he could do
nothing, and must serve, or seem to serve, the villain humor of Storri.
What were those two demands? Storri must meet Dorothy; and Richard must
not. There was no help; Mr. Harley, in his present stress, would see
Dorothy and beg her co-operation. He could not tell the whole story; but
he would say that he was borne upon by trouble, and ask her to acquiesce
in Storri's conditions. He would promise that those conditions were not
to live forever.

Deciding thus, Mr. Harley went forward on his homeward course; he must
see Dorothy without delay, for he would be upon the rack until the
painful conference was over. The night was chill as New Year's nights
have a right to be, and yet Mr. Harley was fain to mop his forehead as
though it were the Dog days. As he neared his own door, his reluctant
pace became as slow as sick men find the flight of time.