CHAPTER XLIV.
GODOLPHIN.
"No, signor, she will not see you!"
"You have given my note--given that ring?"
"I have, and she still refuses."
"Refuses?--and is that all the answer? no line to--to soften the reply?"
"Signor, I have spoken all my message."
"Cruel, hard-hearted! May I call again, think you, with a better success?"
"The convent, at stated times, is open to strangers, signor; but so far as
the young signora is concerned I feel assured, from her manner, that your
visits will be in vain."
"Ay--ay, I understand you, madam; you wish to entice her from the wicked
world,--to suffer not human friendships to disturb her thoughts. Good
Heavens! and can she, so young, so ardent, dream of taking the veil?"
"She does not dream of it," said the nun, coolly; "she has no intention of
remaining here long."
"Befriend me, I beseech you!" cried Godolphin, eagerly "restore her to me;
let me only come once to her within these walls and I will enrich
your----"
"Signor, good-day."
Dejected, melancholy, and yet enraged amidst all his sorrow, Godolphin
returned to Rome. Lucilla's letter rankled in his heart like the barb of
a broken arrow; but the stern resolve with which she had refused to see
him appeared to the pride that belongs to manhood a harsh and unfeeling
insult. He knew not that poor Lucilla's eyes had watched him from the
walls of the convent, and that while, for his sake more than her own, she
had refused the meeting he prayed for, she had not the resolution to deny
herself the luxury of gazing on him once more.
He reached Rome; he found a note on his table from Lady Charlotte Deerham,
saying she had heard it was his intention to leave Rome, and begging him
to receive from her that evening her adieux. "Lady Erpingham will be with
me," concluded the note.
This brought a new train of ideas. Since Lucilla's flight, all thought
but of Lucilla had been expelled from Godolphin's mind. We have seen how
his letter to Lady Erpingham miscarried: he had written no other. How
strange to Constance must seem his conduct, after the scene of the avowal
in the Siren's Cave: no excuse on the one hand, no explanation on the
other; and now what explanation should he give? There was no longer a
necessity, for it was no longer honesty and justice to fly from the bliss
that might await him--the love of his early--worshipped Constance. But
could he, with a heart yet bleeding from the violent rupture of one tie,
form a new one? Agitated, restless, self-reproachful, bewildered, and
uncertain, he could not bear thoughts that demanded answers to a thousand
questions; he flung from his cheerless room, and hastened, with a feverish
pulse and burning temples, to Lady Charlotte Deerham's.
"Good Heavens! how ill you look, Mr. Godolphin!" cried the hostess,
involuntarily.
"Ill!--ha! ha! I never was better; but I have just returned from a long
journey: I have not touched food nor felt sleep for three days and nights!
1-ha, ha! no, I'm not ill;" and, with an eye bright with gathering
delirium, Godolphin glared around him.
Lady Charlotte drew back and shuddered; Godolphin felt a cool, soft hand
laid on his; he turned and the face of Constance, full of anxious and
wondering pity, was bent upon him. He stood arrested for one moment, and
then, seizing that hand, pressed it to his lips--his heart, and burst
suddenly into tears. That paroxysm saved his life; for days afterwards he
was insensible.
