"Nor will the rascal do more," observed Mr. Harley, with the hope of adding to the fortitude of Dorothy, "than come here now and then to dine or sit an hour. That is all he will count upon; and before he seeks anything nearer I'll have him under my foot as now he has me under his. When that hour comes," concluded Mr. Harley, rapping out a sudden great oath that made Dorothy start in her frock, "there will be no saving limits in his favor. I'll apply the torch, and burn him like so much refuse off the earth."
When Mrs. Hanway-Harley endeavored to break Dorothy to the yoke of her ambitions concerning Storri, Dorothy sparkled and blazed and wept and did those divers warlike things that ladies do when engaged in conflict with each other. Dorothy, down in her heart, attached no more than a surface importance to the efforts of Mrs. Hanway-Harley; and that was the reason why on those fierce occasions she only sparkled and blazed and wept. Now, be it known, what Mr. Harley told her seared like hot iron; what he asked of kindness to Storri and cruelty to Richard cut like a knife; and yet there was never tear nor spark to show throughout. She waited cold and white and steady. Dorothy was convinced of her father's danger without knowing its cause or what form it might take; and she filled up with a resolution to do whatever she could, saving only the acceptance of Storri and his love, to buckler him against it. Nor was this difference which Dorothy made between Mrs. Hanway-Harley and Mr. Harley to be marveled at; for just as a mother exerts more influence over a son than would his father, so will a father have weight with a daughter beyond any that her mother might possess.
While Dorothy remained firm and brave as Mr. Harley revealed his troubles and their remedy, she broke down later when she found herself in her own room. She did not call her maid; she must be alone. What had transpired began to come over her in such slow fashion that she was given time to fully feel the ignoble position into which she had fallen. She must not see the man whom she adored; she must meet—with politeness even if she could not with grace—the man whom she loathed. To one of Dorothy's spirit and fineness there dwelt in this an infamy, a baseness, of which Mr. Harley with his lucky coarseness of fiber escaped all notice.
Throwing herself on the bed, Dorothy burrowed her face in the pillow and gave her tears their way. It was the happiest impulse she could have had; when the tears were dried, and in the calm of that relief which was their afterglow, she considered what she had to do. Oh! if only she might have sought her mother with her sorrow! Dorothy shivered; her mother was the ally of her enemy. How Dorothy hated and feared that black and savage man! What fiend's power must he possess to thus gain a fearful mastery over her father! What could be his secret tipped with terror? Dorothy again buried her face as though she would hide herself from any blasting chance of its discovery.
When Dorothy was with Mr. Harley she had been in a maze, a whirl. Wrapped in a cloud of fear, she had reached out blindly through the awful fog of it and seized upon the dear fact of Richard. By Richard she held on; by Richard she sustained herself. She entertained no quaking doubts as to his loyalty; loyal herself, as ever was flower to sun, to distrust Richard was to doubt the ground beneath her little feet. In her innocence, she felt that sublime confidence which is the fruit, the sweet purpose, of a young girl's earliest love. Dorothy must write Richard a letter; she must tell him of the sad gap in their happiness. Yes; she would put him in possession of the entire story so far as it was known to her. He owned a right to hear it. Must his heart be broken, and he not learn the secret or know the author of the blow?
When Dorothy was again mistress of herself, between sobs and tender showers she blotted down those words which were to warn Richard from her side. His love, like her own, would go on; there was to be no final breaking away. It was faith in a dear day that should find them reunited which upheld Dorothy through the ordeal of her letter; her prayer was that the day might be close at hand.
Her letter finished, Dorothy, late as was the hour, sent for Bess; she must have someone's love, someone's sympathy to lean upon. Bess came; and, saying no more than she was driven to reveal of her father's helplessness and Storri's baleful strength, Dorothy told Bess what dolorous fate had overtaken her.
"I've written Richard to go to you, Bess," whispered Dorothy at the woeful close. "Have him write me a letter every day; I shall write one to him. I didn't promise not to write, you know, only not to see him. But you must not let Richard go to Storri, that above all. Poor Richard! he is very fierce; and if he were to arouse Storri's anger it would provoke him to some awful step."
There was a man of robust curiosity who once suggested that it would prove entertaining if one were to lift the roofs off a city as one might the upper crust off a pie, and then, looking down into the very bowels of life, observe what plots and counterplots, defeats and triumphs, loves and hates, pains and pleasures, losses and gains, hopes and despairs, honors and disgraces belonged with the struggles of everyday humanity. It is by no means sure the survey would repay the cost of making it, and the chances run heavily that the student would gather more of grief than good from the lesson. Proceeding, however, by the hint of contradiction furnished above, had one, at the moment when Storri was binding Mr. Harley by fetters wrought from the metal of Mr. Harley's own fearful apprehensions, glanced in upon Richard, he would have found that worthy young gentleman seated by his fireside, soothing himself with tobacco smoke, and reveling in thoughts of Dorothy. And the cogitations of Richard, if written down in words, would have read like this:
"Why should I defer a dénouement that will rejoice them all? Dorothy loves me—loves me for myself, and for nothing but myself. Who could have offered deeper proof of it? She has come to me in the face of her mother, in the face of poverty; she is willing to abandon everything to become my wife. And if her mother objects—as she does object—why not cure the objection with a trifle of truth? I am not seeking to make a conquest of Mrs. Hanway-Harley; that tremendous ambition does not claim me. I am not to marry her. What she thinks, or why she thinks it, should not be so important. It is Dorothy whom I love, Dorothy who is to be my wife—none but Dorothy. No, I'll end a farce which no longer can defend its own existence. To-morrow I'll seek out my intended mother-in-law, and make her happy in the only way I may. I trust the good news may not kill her!" and Richard put on one of those grins of cynicism.