, as I would on another occasion, for
a horrible suspicion had come across me, and I made for the garden as
quickly as I could.

I knew somehow what I should see there. I saw Captain Quin and Nora
pacing the alley together. Her arm was under his, and the scoundrel was
fondling and squeezing the hand which lay closely nestling against his
odious waistcoat. Some distance beyond them was Captain Fagan of the
Kilwangan regiment, who was paying court to Nora's sister Mysie.

I am not afraid of any man or ghost; but as I saw that sight my knees
fell a-trembling violently under me, and such a sickness came over me,
that I was fain to sink down on the grass by a tree against which I
leaned, and lost almost all consciousness for a minute or two: then
I gathered myself up, and, advancing towards the couple on the walk,
loosened the blade of the little silver-hilted hanger I always wore in
its scabbard; for I was resolved to pass it through the bodies of the
delinquents, and spit them like two pigeons. I don't tell what feelings
else besides those of rage were passing through my mind; what bitter
blank disappointment, what mad wild despair, what a sensation as if the
whole world was tumbling from under me; I make no doubt that my reader
hath been jilted by the ladies many times, and so bid him recall his own
sensations when the shock first fell upon him.

'No, Norelia,' said the Captain (for it was the fashion of those times
for lovers to call themselves by the most romantic names out of novels),
'except for you and four others, I vow before all the gods, my heart has
never felt the soft flame!'

'Ah! you men, you men, Eugenio!' said she (the beast's name was John),
'your passion is not equal to ours. We are like--like some plant I've
read of--we bear but one flower and then we die!'

'Do you mean you never felt an inclination for another?' said Captain
Quin.

'Never, my Eugenio, but for thee! How can you ask a blushing nymph such
a question?'

'Darling Norelia!' said he, raising her hand to his lips.

I had a knot of cherry-coloured ribands, which she had given me out of
her breast, and which somehow I always wore upon me. I pulled these out
of my bosom, and flung them in Captain Quin's face, and rushed out with
my little sword drawn, shrieking, 'She's a liar--she's a liar, Captain
Quin! Draw, sir, and defend yourself, if you are a man!' and with these
words I leapt at the monster, and collared him, while Nora made the a