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GODOLPHIN, Volume 5.
By Edward Bulwer Lytton
(Lord Lytton)
It was approaching towards the evening as Lucilla paused for a few secondsat the door which led to Godolphin's apartments. At length she summonedcourage. The servant who admitted her was Godolphin's favorite domestic;and he was amazed, but overjoyed, to see her; for Lucilla was the idol ofall who knew her,—save of him, whose love only she cared and lived for.
His master, he said, was gone out for a short time, but the next day theywere to have returned home. Lucilla coloured with vivid delight to hearthat her letter had produced an effect she had not hoped so expeditiouslyto accomplish. She passed on into Godolphin's apartment. The room boreevident signs of approaching departure; the trunks lay half-packed on thefloor; there was all that importance of confusion around which makes tothe amateur traveller a luxury out of discomfort. Lucilla sat down, andwaited, anxious and trembling, for her lover. Her woman, who hadaccompanied her, thinking of more terrestrial concerns than love, lefther, at her desire. She could not rest long; she walked, agitating andexpecting, to and fro the long and half-furnished chamber whichcharacterises the Italian palace. At length, her eye fell on an openletter on a writing-table at one corner of the room. She glanced over itmechanically,—certain words suddenly arrested her attention. Were thosewords—words of passion—addressed to her? If not, O Heaven! to whom?She obeyed, as she ever did, the impulse of the moment, and read whatfollows:
"Constance—As I write that word how many remembrances rush upon me!—forhow many years has that name been a talisman to my heart, waking itsemotions at will! You are the first woman I ever really loved: yourejected me, yet I could not disdain you. You became another's but mylove could not desert you. Your hand wrote the history of my life afterthe period when we met,—my habits—my thoughts—you influenced andcoloured them all! And now, Constance, you are free; and I love you morefervently than ever! And you—yes, you would not reject me now; you havegrown wiser, and learned the value of a heart. And yet the same Fate thatdivided us hitherto will divide us now; all obstacles but one are passedaway—of that one you shall hear and judge.
"When we parted, Constance, years ago, I did not submit tamely to theburning remembrance you bequeathed me; I sought to dissipate your image,and by wooing others to forget yourself. Need I say, that to know anotherwas only to remember you the more? But among the other and far lessworthy objects of my pursuit was one whom, had I not seen you first, Imight have loved as ardently as I do you; and in the first flush ofemotion, and the heat of sudden events, I imagined that I did so love her.She was an orphan, a child in years and in the world; and I was all toher—I am, all to her. She is not mine by the ties of the Church; but Ihave pledged a faith to her equally sacred and as strong. Shall I breakthat faith? shall I betray that trust? shall I crush a heart that hasalways been mine—mine more tenderly than yours, rich in a thousand giftsand resources, ever was or ever can be? Shall I,—sworn to protecther—I, who have already robbed her of fame and friends, rob her now offather, brother, lover, husband, the world itself,—for I am all to her?Never—never! I shall be wretched throughout life: I shall know that youare free that you—oh! Constance! you might be mine!—but she shall neverdream what she has