They had never been alone together since the night he had brought her home from Bessie’s, and at another time Olivia’s heart would have beaten wildly, and her color would have come at finding herself alone with him; but to-night she was too anxious about the squire to remark it. His quick eye, which always seemed to dwell upon her face with a grave, guardian kind of watchfulness, noticed that something was amiss instantly. “Is anything the matter?” he asked, in a low, earnest voice which never failed to find an echo in her heart. “Forgive me, but I thought you looked--worried.” For a moment she hesitated, and a strong impulse to tell him seized her; but she put it from her, alas! “Did I?” she said, forcing a smile. “Perhaps I am anxious about the dinner. We have a new cook, you know.” His eyes rested upon hers--smiling so bravely!--for a moment, then he smiled. “I cannot fancy you anxious about the dinner,” he said. “Is that all?” and his hand held hers, or, rather, let hers go, slowly and reluctantly. “If there is any other trouble I shall ask you to remember our compact, and tell me.” She was moving away, but turned her face toward him with a doubting, wistful expression in her lovely eyes. Even then she might have spoken and all her future changed, but her evil genius sent Bartley Bradstone into the room at that moment, and with a bitter smile she turned, thinking: “If I tell any one it should be--my future husband.” He came across the room, looking in more than his usual spirits, with a light in his eyes which seemed like that of coming triumph, of confident victory, and began talking in a light and laughing tone. “How well you look to-night, dearest!” he murmured as he passed Olivia, and she smiled again as she thought how blind he was, and how keen-sighted was the other man. “Ah, Faradeane!” and he shook his hand vigorously. “Jolly evening; we shall have plenty of birds if this goes on. Of course you’ll consider yourself free of all my shooting. Glad to see you at any time, don’t you know.” “Thank you,” said Faradeane, in the quiet manner in which he always addressed him; “that’s very kind of you.” “Oh, I like treating a neighbor as a neighbor; that’s my form--always was. Where’s the squire, Olivia? Miss Amelia, you’ll lose your character for punctuality,” and he pulled out his watch, and nodded and laughed at that lady, who, in an elaborate dinner-dress, which would have been juvenile for a girl of twenty-one, was casting side-glances of approval at her figure in the pier-glass. “I’m sure you gentlemen would destroy any one’s good habits,” she simpered, slapping him with her fan. “Often and often I hurry and scurry my maid so that she sends me down a perfect fright lest I should be late, then you come in a quarter of an hour after the bell has rung. Oh, you men, you men!” and she reached out and made a dab at Faradeane, who smiled gravely down upon her as a huge mastiff looks down in kindly pity on a spaniel.