'_J'accepte!_' murmured the girl in reply, and raised her face aglow with passionate trustfulness to his, and as he imprinted the kiss of betrothal on those candid lips, innocent of contact with man's lips before, the door of the inner room opened, and the brunette, who had been reared with Berthe, worn out probably with waiting for her little friend, stood transfixed, a picture of amazement, on its threshold. CHAPTER IX. A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. On the day following the events detailed in our last chapter, O'Hara was seated in his chamber, hard at work at his desk, when a visitor announced himself at the door. It was the O'Hoolohan Roe--in the old suit. 'Take a seat--scribbling away for the bare life, as you see. Just finished.' 'I've come to ask you a favour. I presume you'll grant it.' 'Certainly, always presuming that it is such as a gentleman can grant.' 'Still harping on the old string.' 'Sir,' said O'Hara, getting annoyed, 'I have the misfortune to a certain extent to be your debtor; but I am not your valet. Here, take back the hundred francs you lent me, and we shall speak on more equal terms,' holding out his purse. 'Did I ever ask you for it?' 'I insist on your taking it.' 'If I do, I'm blest if I don't give it to the first beggar I meet on the highway.' 'That as you like, sir. I'm not a beggar--nor yet a barbarian.' 'Ha, ha, ha! That's really good. Now, tell me, who should lose his temper? Here, I take the money and beg your pardon. I didn't think you were so thin-skinned.' 'Thin-skinned! Thank you for that expression.' 'What better could you expect from a barbarian?' O'Hara could not resist a smile. 'Well, now,' continued his visitor, 'that you're getting into better humour I'll try and put on my good manners. The favour I'm going to ask of you is not much; but it's hardly fair to ask it of you without telling you who and what I am. Would you like to hear my history?' 'Candidly, I would.' 'Then, attend,' said his visitor, assuming a more serious air, and after a short pause, in which he seemed to be running over the hoards of memory, he thus commenced: 'My life is briefly told. It has been a hard life, a life of struggling, written in plain black and white, and as such I'll tell it to you. I haven't the genius of a romancer to make it picturesque. I was born in Cork----' 'The city?' 'Yes, the beautiful city.' 'Some of our most eminent literary worthies came from Cork.' 'Well, I'm not one of them--my father was, though, in a way. He kept a classical and mathematical school which was well supported, and called himself a philomath, whatever that meant. My mother was a big-hearted, kind woman who never sent a beggar empty-handed from her door, and believed her husband the most learned man the world ever saw. But if she worshipped her husband, she adored her son.' 'She was a woman,' sententiously remarked O'Hara.