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 weakness.
He joined Godolphin, and said,--

"You must forgive me, my dear Godolphin, for not apprising you before of
Lady Erpingham's arrival at Rome. But a delight is perhaps the greater
for being sudden."

The word Erpingham thrilled displeasingly through Godolphin's veins; in
some measure it restored him to himself. He bowed coldly, and muttered a
few ceremonious words; and while he was yet speaking, some stragglers that
had belonged to Lady Erpingham's party came up. Fortunately, perhaps, for
the self-possession of both, they, the once lovers, were separated from
each other. But whenever Constance turned her glance to Godolphin, she
saw those large, searching, melancholy eyes, whose power she well
recalled, fixed unmovingly on her, as seeking to read in her cheek the
history of the years which had ripened its beauties--for another.