There had come no one to the Harley house this New Year's evening to
engage the polite attentions of Mrs. Hanway-Harley, and that lady, being
armored to the teeth, in the name of comfort had retired to her own
apartments with a purpose to unloose what buttons and remove what pins
and untie what strings stood between her and a great bodily relief.
Dorothy was of neither the size nor the years at which women torture
themselves, and, having no quarrel with her buttons and pins and
strings, sat alone in the library. She was deep in a novel that reeled
with ardent love, and had fallen to despising the lover because he did
not resemble Richard.

It was in the library that Mr. Harley came seeking Dorothy. When he
found her, he stood stock-still, unable to speak one word of all that
tide of talk which would be necessary to bring before her his dangerous
perplexities and the one manner of their possible relief.

Dorothy at his step looked up, pleased to have him home so early. She
was about to say as much, but at sight of him the words perished on her
tongue. It was as though her heart were touched with ice. Mr. Harley's
countenance had been of that quasi claret hue called rubicund. It was
now turned gray and pasty, and his cheeks, as firmly round as those of a
trumpeter, were pouched and fallen as with the palsy of age. He looked
ten years worse than when he went forth two hours before.

Dorothy sprang up in alarm; she feared that he was ill.

"Let me call mamma!" she cried; "let me call Uncle Pat! You are sick."

"No; call nobody!" said Mr. Harley feebly, and speaking with difficulty.
"I'm not ill; I'll be right in a moment." Then he had Dorothy back into
her chair, gazing upon her the while in a stricken way, as though she
were hangman or headsman, and he before her for execution. Mr. Harley
was held between terror of Storri and shame for what he must say to
Dorothy. Wondering what fearful blow had fallen upon them, Dorothy sat
facing her father the color of death.

"Tell me, papa," she whispered, with a terror in her tones, "tell me
what has happened."

Despair brought a sickly calmness to Mr. Harley; he cleared his mind
with a struggle and controlled himself to speak. He would say all at
once, and leave the rest with Dorothy.

"Dorothy," he began, the iron effort he was making being plainly
apparent, "Dorothy, I have had a talk with that scoundrel without a
conscience, Count Storri. I do not pretend that I come will