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.