became suddenly silent as they gazed. Godolphin was the first to speak:
it brought to his memory a scene in that delicious land, whose Southern
loveliness Claude has transfused to the canvas, and De Stael to the
page. With his own impassioned and earnest language, he spoke to
Constance of that scene and that country. Every tree before him
furnished matter for his illustration or his contrast; and, as she heard
that magic voice, and speaking, too, of a country dedicated to
love, Constance listened with glistening eyes, and a cheek which
he,--consummate master of the secrets of womanhood--perceived was
eloquent with thoughts which she knew not, but which _he_ interpreted to
the letter.

"And in such a spot," said he, continuing, and fixing his deep and
animated gaze on her,--"in such a spot I could have stayed for ever but
for one recollection, one feeling--_I should have been too much alone!_
In a wild or a grand, or even a barren country, we may live in solitude,
and find fit food for thought; but not in one so soft, so subduing, as
that which I saw and see. Love comes over us then in spite of ourselves;
and I feel--I feel now"--his voice trembled as he spoke--"that any
secret we may before have nursed, though hitherto unacknowledged, makes
itself at length a voice. We are oppressed with the desire to be loved;
we long for the courage to say we love."

Never before had Godolphin, though constantly verging into sentiment,
spoken to Constance in so plain a language. Eye, voice, cheek--all
spoke. She felt that he had confessed he loved her! And was she not
happy at that thought? She was: it was her happiest moment. But, in that
sort of vague and indistinct shrinking from the subject with which a
woman who loves hears a disclosure of love from him on whose lips it is
most sweet, she muttered some confused attempt to change the subject,
and quickened her horse's pace. Godolphin did not renew the topic so
interesting and so dangerous, only, as with the winding of the road the
landscape gradually faded from their view, he said, in a low voice, as
if to himself,--"How long, how fondly, shall I remember this day!"

CHAPTER XVI.

GODOLPHIN'S RETURN HOME.--HIS SOLILOQUY.--LORD ERPINGHAM'S ARRIVAL AT
WENDOVER CASTLE.--THE EARL DESCRIBED.--HIS ACCOUNT OF GODOLPHIN'S LIFE
AT ROME.

With a listless step, Godolphin re-entered the threshold of his
cottage-home. He passed into a small chamber, which was yet the largest
in hi