Evidently with the idea of himself getting cool he began to walk slowly and thoughtfully up and down the room, his hands behind him, his feet carefully placed one before the other, heel to toe, as if he were measuring off the carpet,--rather a ridiculous proceeding to a stranger, but his daughter was accustomed to the eccentricity, and now saw nothing absurd in his struggles to retain his balance. "Yes," he said suddenly, after pacing up and down the carpet a few times, "take time, and get cool." As he spoke he left the room, and Rhoda Penwynn seated herself in the window, with her eyes apparently fixed upon the dancing boats at sea, though they saw nothing but the dark, handsome face of John Tregenna, with the slight puckering beneath his eyes, and the thin, close red line of his lips, as he appeared to her last when he took her hand to raise it respectfully to the said thin lips; and, as she, seemed to meet his eyes, she shuddered, and wished that she could change places with the poorest girl upon the cliff. "Miss Pavey, ma'am," said a footman, and she started, for she had not heard him enter; "in the drawing-room, ma'am." Rhoda rose hastily, and tried to smooth away the lines of care, as she hurried into the room to meet her visitor. CHAPTER TWO. THE ADVENTURER. "How much farther is it, coachman?" "Carnac, sir? Just four miles. There it lies! Yonder white houses, by the cove, with the high rocks o' both sides." "Four miles? Why, it does not seem two." "It's all four, sir," said the driver, giving his long whip a _whish_ through the air, making the leaders of the four-horse coach shake their heads and increase their speed, as he deftly caught the end of the lash, and twisted the thong around the whip-shaft by a turn of his wrist. "Ah!" said the first speaker, a young man of about thirty, "the air is so fine and clear. I presume that you are going on to Felsport?" "No, no," said the gentleman addressed, in a hesitating tone of voice; "I am going to stop at Carnac." His long black coat, broad-brimmed round-topped hat and tassel, suggested that he was a clergyman of advanced--or retrogressive--views, and he paused wearily, as if annoyed at being interrupted, as he spoke-- "How strange! Do you know the place?" "N-no; I have never seen it."