o, I can press you in my arms."

"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," said 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."

"Yes, your health, in the first place--"

"It is not that, I know."

"My dear friend, you would be wrong. I think, to ask me any
questions--_you_ of all persons in the world;" 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 have
finished telling me of all your own pleasures and your pains."

"My dear friend, I am entirely at your service."

"Thank you; I have hurried, I have flown here; I came 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 must have been something else, I suppose?"

"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, I say, have planted jealousy in
my heart, merely to say to me, 'It is all right, be perfectly easy.'"

"I do not say to you, Raoul, 'Be perfectly easy;' but pray understand
me; I never will, nor can I, indeed, tell you anything else."

"What sort of person do you take me for?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you know anything, why conceal it from me? If you do not know
anything, why did you write so warningly?"

"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 and anxiously
wait to hear what one hardly dare tell him, is very difficult."

"Dare! I have courage enough, if you have not," exclaimed