"Now are you happy again?" I
asked.
"Yes, I'm happy," he said. "Though on the way to this house I didn't
dream that it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in
this world. And even at your gate--" He stopped suddenly, and his face
changed. I waited an instant, but seeing that he didn't mean to go on, I
could not resist questioning him. I had to know what had happened at my
gate.
"Even at the gate--what?" I asked.
"Nothing. I'm sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust
you now, by not speaking of that."
But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had
been going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it
from his lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it
recurred to him in the future, might make him doubt me, even though in
this moment of exaltation he did not doubt.
"Yes, speak of it," I said. "All the more because it is nothing. For it
_can_ be nothing."
"I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about Godensky, by
not allowing you to explain this other thing," insisted poor, loyal,
repentant Raoul. "Then--at the time--it made all the rest seem worse, a
thousand times worse.
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