unwise. But the jealousy of a night had
shivered into dust a prudence which never of right belonged to a very
ardent and generous nature: that jealousy was soothed, allayed; but
how fierce, how stunning was the blow that succeeded it! Constance had
confessed love, and yet had refused him--for ever! Clear and noble as to
herself her motives might seem in that refusal, it was impossible that
they should appear in the same light to Godolphin. Unable to penetrate
into the effect which her father's death-bed and her own oath had
produced on the mind of Constance; how indissolubly that remembrance
had united itself with all her schemes and prospects for the future; how
marvellously, yet how naturally, it had converted worldly ambition into
a sacred duty;--unable, I say, to comprehend all these various, and
powerful, and governing motives, Godolphin beheld in her refusal only
the aversion to share his slender income, and the desire for loftier
station. He considered, therefore, that sorrow was a tribute to her
unworthy of himself; he deemed it a part of his dignity to strive to
forget. That hallowed sentiment which, in some losses of the heart,
makes it a duty to remember, and preaches a soothing and soft lesson
from the very text of regret, was not for the wrung and stricken soul of
Godolphin. He only strove to dissipate his grief, and shut out from
his mental sight the charmed vision of the first, the only woman he had
deeply loved.

Godolphin felt, too, that the sole impulse which could have united the
fast-expiring energy and enterprise of his youth to the ambition of life
was for ever gone. With Constance--with the proud thoughts that belonged
to her--the aspirings after earthly honours were linked, and with her
were broken. He felt his old philosophy--the love of ease, the profound
contempt for fame,--close, like the deep waters over those glittering
hosts for whose passage they had been severed for a moment--whelming the
crested and gorgeous visions for ever beneath the wave! Conscious of his
talents--nay, swayed to and fro by the unquiet stirrings of no common
genius--Godolphin yet foresaw that he was not henceforth destined to
play a shining part in the crowded drama of life. His career was already
closed; he might be contented, prosperous, happy, but never great. He
had seen enough of authors, and of the thorns that beset the paths
of literature, to experience none of those delusions which cheat
the blinded aspirer i