“I loved you, Denis--ay, loved in all the madness with which woman loves. The peasant girl never dreamed that birth and rank had divided us immeasurably. She never thought that she should be wooed and won, and cast aside for others. She knew nothing of the world. Those, for whom Heaven had designed her, sought her, and sued, and were rejected. You came. Six years had changed us--the child had become a girl--the boy had become a man. There was joy and merriment at Knockloftie--I was your chosen partner in the dance--and you would leave your dogs upon the moor, to steal to the bouillee, and sit for hours beside me. Is it to be wondered at that I loved with the ardour of a first passion--and the undoubting confidence of woman? While no sound was heard above the rushing waterfall, you plucked heath and wild-flowers from the bank, placed them in my hair, and swore you would be constant. Fool that I was! I believed you,--hid them in my bosom,--and before they faded, I found myself deserted and betrayed.” She paused,--her agitation was fearful; but a flood of tears relieved it, and she thus continued:--“You went to another land,--the sea rolled between us,--and were you forgotten? Oh, no! In fancy, I saw you still upon the moor--in sleep, I sate beside you on the heather--your name was mingled in my prayers--and when one was offered for my own sins, three were poured warm from the heart, to implore a blessing on the absent one. Well, well; the dream is over,--the spell is broken,--and in this world you and I shall never meet again. Farewell, Colonel. There were two beings between whom this heart once was shared. I look my last upon the living one--and, too soon, I shall have looked my last upon the dead. I dare not press that hand--there’s blood upon it; and--oh, God! that blood--a brother’s!” The priest, who had witnessed the termination of this painful interview, led Mary Halligan from the room. Her brother’s body, with those of the other lawless men who had fallen or been wounded in the night affray, were already by my father’s orders removed to an adjacent village. Presently, the sky was overcast, the moon withdrew her light, and a heavy snow shower fell for miles around, covering the surface of the ground; and when morning dawned no traces of a recent affray were seen, and not a blood-stain was visible. One melancholy memorial of foul treachery alone remained:--hidden by a sward of snow, poor Caesar lay before his empty kennel; and, true to the last, even in the agonies of death he had howled a bold defiance at his enemies.