Who would have held back the secret in his situation? Would you or I?
Doubtful, if when smitten with love for a fair, sweet girl, we had felt
that its telling would have riveted the bonds which, at the most, were
only partly formed, and might dissolve into nothingness if not thus
strengthened.
It was the youth's fine-grained sense of honor that restrained him.
"She holds a good opinion of me now. If it should ever happen that that
feeling grows into love (and Heaven grant it may!), it must be for me
alone, and not for any accident in the past. Suppose I had not done her a
good turn to-day,--she might have discarded Catherwood for his baseness,
but what would have caused her to transfer her regard to me? No, she shall
never know the whole truth until--until"--
He dared not finish the thrilling sentence, the blissful hope, the wild
dream, that set his nerves dancing. Unto us all can come that radiant,
soulful, all-absorbing emotion but once in our life, and it is too sacred
to be trifled with; for once destroyed, once crushed, once dead, and the
holy thing vanishes forever.
Two noticeable truths became manifest to Tom Gordon on the morrow.
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