"And yet you have lost her,—lost her, perhaps, beyond all redemption. Oh Harry, brother Harry, were you but enough in your senses to understand me!"
"I am, sister, I am," cried Falconer; and indeed the devil, drunkenness, was fast giving place to the devil, fear: "I have been drinking; but I swear to heaven."
"Swear no more: you have done so a dozen times already."
"I have done so, sister; but I swear again, and I call heaven to witness, that if you have spoken the truth, and Catherine be really lost, I will never drink more till I have recovered or revenged her. But for pity's sake, speak; what is the matter?—I am sober now. What has brought you out here in the dark? Where is Catherine? What is the matter?"
"You shall hear," cried Miss Falconer, hurriedly: "perhaps it is not yet too late. You have a rival, brother, a dangerous rival!"
"Oh, gad now, sister! lord, is that all?" exclaimed the young man, bursting into a laugh: "why, you don't think I shall go jealous, because I have a rival? Gad, Harry, you're the most absurd sister in the world.—I wonder what the deuce has become of my hat?—A rival, Hal? One of these village clotpolls! A dozen of 'em, if you like: the more the merrier. I'll invite 'em all to my wedding."
"You are mad!" cried Harriet. "Wedding, indeed! Perhaps you will never be married. What think you of a rival that has her heart?"
"Her heart? Catherine's heart?" exclaimed the gay-brained soldier; "why, it has been mine these two years!"
"And now," said Harriet, "it is another's.—Brother! rouse from your dream of confidence and security. It is as true as that the stars are above us: Catherine Loring loves another."
"Harriet!"——