And with these words, and in an agitation very unusual with him, he hastened from the room. Scarcely had the door closed after him, than he reopened it, and putting in his head, said,-- “I should have told you, Mrs. Kennyfeck, that Mr. Cashel intends to pay a visit here to-day.” And so saying, he shut the door and departed. “At last, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Kennyfeck, in a voice of exultation, “you have been obliged to confess so much at least; but, rely on it, girls, your father is acting under Cashel's dictation, or he never would dare to tamper in this manner with _me_.” CHAPTER X. A STARTLING INTRUSION Say what you will, good friend, I do persist, I had him “covered” when you shook my wrist. The Duel. In a handsome drawing-room, where the light was judiciously tempered by the slight folds of rose-colored curtains, while the air breathed the faint delicious perfume of some hot-house flowers, sat Olivia Kennyfeck alone. She was most simply but becomingly dressed, and in her hair, worn in smooth bands on either cheek, a little sprig of Greek myrtle, with its bright red berries, was interwoven, which served to show to even greater advantage the delicate fairness of a skin tinged with the very faintest blush. There was a soft pensive character in her beauty which seemed to harmonize perfectly with the silent room and its scattered objects of art. The very exclusion of all view appeared to add to the effect; as though suggesting how much of in-door happiness was contained within those four walls\ neither asking for, nor wanting, the “wide cold world” without. She was reading--at least she held a book in her hand--a gorgeously bound little volume it was--nor did the dark ribbon of velvet fringed with gold that marked her place fail to contrast well with the snowy whiteness of the wrist it fell upon. Her attitude, as she lay, rather than sat, in a deep armchair, was faultless in its grace; and even the tiny foot, which rested on a little Blenheim spaniel as he lay sleeping on the hearth-rug, had a certain air of homelike ease that made the scene a picture, and to a suggestive mind might have given it a story. And yet, for all the sleepy softness of those half-drooped lids, for all that voluptuous ease of every lineament and limb, the heart within was watchful and waking. Not a sound upon the stairs, not a voice, not a footstep, that did not make its pulses beat faster and fuller.