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!'