_ 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. _