That rape of the fingers perpetrated, Townsend turned away, too suddenly to notice whether his action had planted yet deeper roses on the lady's cheek. Margaret Hayley went back towards the piano, without another word, apparently to re-commence her suspended musical exercises, and the lawyer passed through the door leading into the hall. He did not do so, however, sufficiently soon to escape the notice of Captain Hector Coles, who, apparently on a voyage of discovery after the truant Margaret, strode into the parlor just as the other was leaving it, and as he nodded managed at the same time to stare into the lawyer's face in so supercilious and insulting a manner that he fairly entitled himself to what he did not receive--a mortal defiance or a blow on the spot! It was plain that he recognized Margaret Hayley at the piano, and that he saw she must have been alone with the object of his suspicion and hatred: was there not indeed some cause for the face of the gallant Captain assuming such an arrogant ferocity of aspect as might have played Gorgon's head to a whole rebel army? But the awkward meeting did not seem seriously to disturb the young lady: she looked up from her keys, saw the foes in the door-way, saw the glance they interchanged, and then dashed those bewitching fingers into a German waltz of such startling and impudent brilliancy that it seemed to accord almost premeditatedly with certain points in her own character. Here, to Horace Townsend, the curtain of that morning shut down. He passed on and did not see the meeting between Captain Hector Coles, and "the lady" (more or less) "of his love," which may or may not have been cordial and agreeable to an extreme! * * * * * Another of those inevitable dashes, here. They are very useful, as they prevent the necessity of a steady and unbroken narration which would not be at all like real life--that thing most unsteady and most constantly broken into fragments.