"You know it is always expected that privy inquiries will be made: that's where the--fun lies." If the word "fun" had been "torture," it could not have been uttered with a more constrained and restless countenance than was Boldwood's then.
Soon parting from Gabriel, the lonely and reserved man returned to his house to breakfast--feeling twinges of shame and regret at having so far exposed his mood by those fevered questions to a stranger.

He again placed the letter on the mantelpiece, and sat down to think of the circumstances attending it by the light of Gabriel's information..