ut to let me go with thee wherever thou
goest."

"Poor child!" said Godolphin, gazing on her; "art thou not aware that
thou askest thine own dishonour?"

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 impas