“Ah! I understand.”
“And I understand you too. You fancy I am unhappy, Raoul?”
“Alas!”
“No; I am the happiest of men. My body suffers, but not my mind or my heart. If you only knew- Oh, I am, indeed, the very happiest of men!”
“So much the better,” replied Raoul; “so much the better, provided it lasts.”
“It is over. I have had enough happiness to last me to my dying day, Raoul.”
“I have no doubt you have had; but she-”
“Listen! I love her, because- But you are not listening to me.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Your mind is preoccupied.”
“Well, yes; your health, in the first place-”
“It is not that.”
“My dear friend, you would be wrong, I think, to ask me any questions,- you!” and he laid so much weight upon the “you” that he completely enlightened his friend upon the nature of the evil and the difficulty of remedying it.
“You say that, Raoul, on account of what I wrote to you.”
“Certainly. We will talk over that matter a little when you shall have finished telling me of all your own pleasures and pains.”
“My dear friend, I am entirely at your service now.”
“Thank you. I have hurried, I have flown here,- I came here from London in half the time the government couriers usually take. Now, tell me, my dear friend, what did you want?”
“Nothing whatever, but to make you come.”
“Well, then, I am here.”
“All is quite right, then.”
“There is still something else, I imagine?”
“No, indeed.”
“De Guiche!”
“Upon my honor!”
“You cannot possibly have crushed all my hopes so violently, or have exposed me to being disgraced by the King for my return, which is in disobedience of his orders,- you cannot, in short, have planted jealousy in my heart, merely to say to me, ‘It is all right, sleep quietly!'”
“I do not say to you, Raoul, ‘Sleep quietly!’ But pray understand me; I never will, nor can I indeed, tell you anything else.”
“Oh, my friend, for whom do you take me?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you know anything, why conceal it from me? If you do not know anything, why did you warn me?”
“True, true! I was very wrong, and I regret having done so, Raoul. It seems nothing to write to a friend and say, ‘Come’; but to have this friend face to face, to feel him tremble and breathlessly wait to hear what one hardly dare tell him-”
“Dare! I have courage enough, if you have not,” exclaimed Raoul, in despair.
“See how unjust you are, and how soon you forget you have to do with a poor wounded fellow,- the half of your heart! Calm yourself, Raoul! I said to you, ‘Come’; you are here. Ask nothing further of the unhappy De Guiche.”
“You summoned me in the hope that I should see with my own eyes, did you not? Nay, do not hesitate, for I have seen all.”
“Oh!” exclaimed De Guiche.
“Or at least I thought-”
“There now, you see you are not sure. But if you have any doubt, my poor friend, what remains for me to do?”
“I have seen Louise agitated, Montalais in a state of bewilderment, the King-”
“The King?”
“Yes. You turn your head aside. The danger is there, the evil is there! tell me, is it not so,- it is the King?”
“I say nothing.”
“Oh, you say a thousand upon a thousand times more than nothing! Give me facts! for pity’s sake, give me proofs! My friend, the only friend I have, speak! My heart is crushed, wounded to death; I am dying from despair.”
“If that really be so, my dear Raoul,” replied De Guiche, “you relieve me from my difficulty, and I will tell you all, sure that I can tell you nothing but what is consoling, compared to the despair in which I now see you.”
“Go on, go on! I am listening.”
“Well, then, I can only tell you what you can learn from the first-comer.”
“From the first-comer? It is talked about?” cried Raoul.
“Before you say people talk about it, learn what it is that people can talk about. I assure you, solemnly, that people only talk about what may in truth be very innocent; perhaps a walk-“