"Don't!" cried Harold, with a sound as of far more pain than gladness.
"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?"