But asking was not easy.
It was not possible.

And there was a barrel of powder to lay a fiery head on, for a pillow! To confess that he had not the courage to inquire was as good as an acknowledgment that he knew too much for an innocent questioner.

And what did he know?
His brother Philip's fair angel forbade him to open the door upon what he knew.

He took a peep through fancy's keyhole, and delighted himself to think that he had seen nothing.
After a turbulent night with Schinderhannes, who let him go no earlier than the opening of a December day, Patrick hied away to one of the dusky nooks by the lake for a bracing plunge.

He attributed to his desire for it the strange deadness of the atmosphere, and his incapacity to get an idea out of anything he looked on: he had not a sensation of cold till the stinging element gripped him.