"Whom?" asked Godolphin, perceiving she would not proceed: but as she was still silent, he did not press the question. "Come!" said he, persuasively: "come, promise, and be friends with me; do not let us part angrily: I am about to take my leave of you for many months. "Part!--you!--months!--O God, do not say so!" With these words, she was by his side; and gazing on him with her large and pleading eyes, wherein was stamped a wildness, a terror, the cause of which he did not as yet decipher. "No, no," said she, with a faint smile: "no! you mean to frighten me, to extort my promise. You are not going to desert me!" "But, Lucilla, I will not leave you to unkindness; they shall not--they dare not wound you again." "Say to me that you are not going from Rome--speak; quick!" "I go in two days." "Then let me die!" said Lucilla, in a tone of such deep despair, that it chilled and appalled Godolphin, who did not, however, attribute her grief (the grief of this mere child--a child so wayward and eccentric) to any other cause than that feeling of abandonment which the young so bitterly experience at being left utterly alone with persons unfamiliar to their habits and opposed to their liking. He sought to soothe her, but she repelled him. Her features worked convulsively: she walked twice across the room; then stopped opposite to him, and a certain strained composure on her brow seemed to denote that she had arrived at some sudden resolution. "Wouldst thou ask me," she said, "what cause took me into the streets as the shadows darkened, and enabled me lightly to bear threats at home and risk abroad?" "Ay, Lucilla: will you tell me?" "Thou wast the cause!" she said, in a low voice, trembling with emotion, and the next moment sank on her knees before him.