tance and through
country roads, Lady Erpingham had proffered him that hospitality, and
he had willingly accepted it. Before the appointed hour, he was at the
appointed spot.

He had passed the hours till then without even seeking his pillow. In
restless strides across his chamber, he had revolved those words with
which Constance had seemed to deny the hopes she herself had created.
All private and more selfish schemes or reflections had vanished, as
by magic, from the mind of a man prematurely formed, but not yet wholly
hardened in the mould of worldly speculation. He thought no more of what
he should relinquish in obtaining her hand; with the ardour of boyish
and real love, he thought only of her. It was as if there existed no
world but the little spot in which she breathed and moved. Poverty,
privation, toil, the change of the manners and habits of his whole
previous life, to those of professional enterprise and self-denial;--to
all this he looked forward, not so much with calmness as with triumph.

"Be but Constance mine!" said he again and again; and again and again
those fatal words knocked at his heart, "No hope--none!" and he gnashed
his teeth in very anguish, and muttered, "But mine she will not--she
will never be!"

Still, however, before the hour of noon, something of his habitual
confidence returned to him. He had succeeded, though but partially, in
reasoning away the obvious meaning of the words; and he ascended to the
chamber from the gardens, in which he had sought, by the air, to cool
his mental fever, with a sentiment, ominous and doubtful indeed, but
still removed from despondency and despair.

The day was sad and heavy. A low, drizzling rain, and labouring yet
settled clouds, which denied all glimpse of the sky, and seemed cursed
into stagnancy by the absence of all wind or even breeze, increased
by those associations we endeavour in vain to resist, the dark and
oppressive sadness of his thoughts.

He paused as he laid his hand on the door of the chamber: he listened;
and in the acute and painful life which seemed breathed into all
his senses, he felt as if he could have heard,--though without the
room,--the very breath of Constance; or known, as by an inspiration, the
presence of her beauty. He opened the door gently; all was silence and
desolation for him--Constance was not there!

He felt, however, as if that absence was a relief. He breathed more
freely, and seemed to himself more prepared