he habitation of Saturn; the home of Tully; the
sight of the Golden House of Nero! Look at your feet,--look around; the
waving weed, the broken column--Time's witness, and the Earthquake's. In
that contrast between grandeur and decay,--in the unutterable and awful
solemnity that, while rife with the records of past ages, is sad also
with their ravage, you have felt the nature of eternity!

Through this vast amphitheatre, and giving way to such meditations,
Godolphin passed on alone, the day after his meeting with Saville;
and at the hour he had promised the latter to seek him, he mounted the
wooden staircase which conducts the stranger to the wonders above the
arena, and by one of the arches that looked over the still pines that
slept afar off in the sun of noon, he saw a female in deep mourning,
whom Saville appeared to be addressing. He joined them; the female
turned round, and he beheld, pale and saddened, but how glorious still,
the face of Constance! To him the interview was unexpected, by her
foreseen. The colour flushed over her cheek, the voice sank inaudible
within. But Godolphin's emotion was more powerful and uncontrolled:
violent tremblings literally shook him as he stood; he gasped for
breath: the sight of the dead returned to earth would have affected him
less.

In this immense ruin--in the spot where, most of earth, man feels the
significance of an individual life, or of the rapid years over which it
extends, he had encountered, suddenly, the being who had coloured all
his existence. He was reminded at once of the grand epoch of his life
and of its utter unimportance. But these are the thoughts that would
occur rather to us than him. Thought at that moment was an intolerable
flash that burst on him for an instant, and then left all in darkness.
He clung to the shattered corridor for support. Constance seemed touched
and surprised by so overwhelming an emotion, and the habitual hypocrisy
in which women are reared, and by which they learn to conceal the
sentiments they experience, and affect those they do not, came to her
assistance and his own.

"It is many years, Mr. Godolphin," said she in a collected but soft
voice, "since we met."

"Years!" repeated Godolphin, vaguely; and approaching her with a slow
and faltering step. "Years! you have not numbered them!"

Saville had retired a few steps on Godolphin's arrival, and had
watched with a sardonic yet indifferent smile the proof of his friend's
weakn