"

"I swear!"

The soothsayer rose--and----

* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *

CHAPTER LXII.

IN WHICH THE COMMON LIFE GLIDES INTO THE STRANGE.--EQUALLY TRUE, BUT THE
TRUTH NOT EQUALLY ACKNOWLEDGED.

It was on the night of this interview that Constance, coming into
Godolphin's room, found him leaning against the wall, pale, and
agitated, and almost insensible. "Percy--Percy, you are ill!" she
exclaimed, and wound her arms round his neck. He looked at her long and
wistfully, breathing hard all the time, until at length he seemed slowly
to recover his self-possession, and seating himself, motioned Constance
to do the same. After a pause, he said, clasping her hand.

"Listen to me, Constance. My health, I fear, is breaking; I am tormented
by fearful visions; I am possessed by some magic influence. For several
nights successively, before falling asleep, a cold tremor has gradually
pervaded my frame; the roots of my hair stand on end; my teeth chatter;
a vague horror seizes me; my blood seems turned to a solid substance, so
curdled and stagnant is it. I strive to speak, to cry out, but my voice
clings to the roof of my mouth; I feel that I have no longer power over
myself. Suddenly, and in the very midst of this agony, I fall into
a heavy sleep; then come strange bewildering dreams, with Volktman's
daughter for ever presiding over them; but with a changed countenance,
calm, unutterably calm, and gazing on me with eyes that burn into
my soul. The dream fades, I wake with the morning, but exhausted and
enfeebled. I have consulted physicians; I have taken drugs; but I cannot
break the spell--the previous horror and the after-dreams. And just now,
Constance, just now--you see the window is open to the park, the gate of
the garden is unclosed; I happened to lift my eyes, and lo! gazing upon
me in the sickly moonlight, was the countenance of my dreams--Lucilla's,
but how altered! Merciful Heaven! is it a mockery, or can the living
Lucilla really be in England? and have these visions, these terrors been
part of that mysterious sympathy which united us ever, and which her
father predicted should cease but with our lives?"

The emotions of Godolphin were so rarely visible, and in the present
instance they were so unaffected, and so roused, that Constance could
not summon courage to soothe, to cheer him; she herself was alarmed and
shocked, and glanced fearfu