As they talked, he was in a miserable panic of apprehension lest Harry should blurt out something about Madeline's being married.

He felt that he could only bear to hear it from Laura's lips.
Whenever the other opened his mouth to speak, a cold dew started out on Henry's forehead for fear he was going to make some allusion to Madeline; and when at last they separated without his having done so, there was such weakness in his limbs as one feels who first walks after a sickness.
He saw his folly now, his madness, in allowing himself to dally with a baseless hope, which, while never daring to own its own existence, had yet so mingled its enervating poison with every vein that he had now no strength left to endure the disappointment so certain and so near.

At the very gate of his father's house he paused.

A powerful impulse seized him to fly.

It was not yet too late.