Lucilla seemed surprised:--"Is it dishonour to love? They do not think so in Italy. It is wrong for a maiden to confess it; but that thou hast forgiven me. And if to follow thee--to sit with thee--to be near thee--bring aught of evil to myself, not thee,--let me incur the evil: it can be nothing compared to the agony of thy absence!" She looked up timidly as she spoke, and saw, with a sort of terror, that his face worked with emotions which seemed to choke his answer. "If," she cried passionately, "if I have said what pains thee--if I have asked what would give dishonour, as thou callest it, or harm, to thyself, for give me--I knew it not--and leave me. But if it were not of thyself that thou didst speak, believe that thou hast done me but a cruel mercy. Let me go with thee, I implore! I have no friend here: no one loves me. I hate the faces I gaze upon; I loathe the voices I hear. And, were it for nothing else, thou remindest me of him who is gone:--thou art familiar to me--every look of thee breathes of my home, of my household recollections. Take me with thee, beloved stranger!--or leave me to die--I will not survive thy loss!" "You speak of your father: know you that, were I to grant what you, in your childish innocence, so unthinkingly request, he might curse me from his grave?" "O God, not so!--mine is the prayer--be mine the guilt, if guilt there be. But is it not unkinder in thee to desert his daughter than to protect her?" There was a great, a terrible struggle in Godolphin's breast. "What," said he, scarcely knowing what he said,--"what will the world think of you if you fly with a stranger?" "There is no world to me but thee!" "What will your uncle--your relations say?" "I care not; for I shall not hear them." "No, no; this must not be!" said Godolphin proudly, and once more conquering himself. "Lucilla, I would give up every other dream or hope in life to feel that I might requite this devotion by passing my life with thee: to feel that I might grant what thou askest without wronging thy innocence; but--but--" "You love me then! You love me!" cried Lucilla, joyously, and alive to no other interpretation of his words. Godolphin was transported beyond himself; and clasping Lucilla in his arms he covered her cheeks, her lips, with impassioned and burning kisses; then suddenly, as if stung by some irresistible impulse, he tore himself away; and fled from the spot.