is desperate back and felt for an instant that if she let him go like this, she would lose him forever.
Raphael stopped one step away from the doorknob.
A pair of slender yet powerful arms wrapped around his waist from behind. He felt a soft, warm cheek hit his back.
His hands hesitated to grab the two hands pressed against his abdomen and did not move for a long time.
He knew clearly that it was just a moment of compassion overwhelming her heart.
Raphael took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. He pulled her arms down, turned around, and sat back at the table.
Edith relaxed a little. At least the young man in front of her no longer exuded the aura of resolve he had just now.
She silently sat back in her chair. Raphael supported his head with one hand, leaving his back for her.
After a while, she was surprised to see the edge of the table he was supporting, which was full of cracks, vibrating slightly, his shoulders shaking violently.
He was wailing, yet never made a sound.
Edith''s lips moved a few times, but failed to say a thing to this poor man.
She didn''t know how long a time had passed when his body eventually calmed down, seeming to have overcome that attack of weakness.
"There''s someone who always felt he was worthless," he slowly began, his voice still hoarse and dry. "But others told him that he was born superior, he''s the inheritor of a noble surname. No one has ever taught him how to live. All he learned was how to be a noble.
"Mother, to him, was nothing but a distant and vague memory. Father didn''t have much affection for him, he always knew that very well. He couldn''t see the meaning of life-until he met her. There was a kind of vitality of life burning in her, endless, never would exhaust.
"She brought him hope for life, yet removed herself only in the second year. But since this boy had already seen the light, he could no longer bear the dark; he still longed for reunion with her one day. He had worried about the gap between him and her; until that year, his father died, and he was not sad, but only grateful: he could finally make his own decisions.
"But in just a few months, everything was destroyed. People told him