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.
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.