"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!"---- "It is true--she confessed it with her own lips." "Confessed it, sister!" said the young man; and then added, with a spirit that surprised her, "If that be so, why then good luck to her: she shall have her freedom. I don't think I shall break my heart; and, certainly, I shan't force her to marry me. But, Hal,--look you, sister Hal,--I did not think she would cozen me. She confessed it, did she? Why, that's enough. I'm an honourable man; but after being cheated and jilted, I don't care much----But if I don't kill the scoundrel, Hal!--I say if I don't kill him, you may have leave to call me a fool and chicken twice over!--Confess it!" If this display of spirit surprised Miss Falconer, the manifest distress with which her brother spoke, incredible as it may seem, greatly gratified her. His greatest fault in her eyes,--that is, aside from his dissipated habits,--was that easy indifference of disposition, or indolence of feeling, which kept him reckless and passive when she would have had him ardent and energetic. She knew him to be insensible of the full value of that prize it was her ambition to secure him; and had he been any but her brother, she would have hated him for what seemed the feebleness of his affection, as indicated by the little pains he took to secure that of Catherine. It was obvious, from this homely burst, in which magnanimity, pride, indignation, anger, and distress, were all so characteristically jumbled together, that the young gentleman had really feeling enough at bottom, and that, in a great measure, of the right kind; and the discovery brought a ray of hope into her mind.