"But why not, Harry? You asked me."
"Don't light up what I have been struggling to quench ever since I
knew it."
"Why?" I went on. "You need not hold back on Eustace's account.
I am quite sure nothing would make her accept him, and I am equally
convinced--"
"Hush, Lucy!" he said in a scarcely audible voice. "It is
profanation. Remember--"
"But all that is over," I said. "Things that happened when you were
a mere boy, and knew no better, do not seem to belong to you now."
"Sometimes they do not," he said sadly; but--"
"What is repented," I began, but he interrupted.
"The fact is not changed. It is not fit that the purest, gentlest,
brightest creature made by Heaven should be named in the same day
with one stained with blood--aye, and deeds I could not speak of to
you."
I could not keep from crying as I said, "If I love you the more,
Harry, would not she?"
"See here, Lucy," said Harry, standing still with his hand on my
rein; "you don't know what you do in trying to inflame what I can
hardly keep down. The sweet little thing may have a fancy for me
because I'm the biggest fellow she knows, and have done a thing or
two; but what I am she knows less than even you do; and would it not
be a wicked shame either to gain the tender heart in ignorance, or to
thrust on it the knowledge and the pain of such a past as mine?" And
his groan was very heavy, so that I cried out:
"Oh, Harry! this is dreadful.
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