every subject it touched, now glowing over description, now flashing into
remark, Godolphin at one time forgot, and at another more keenly felt, the
magnitude of the sacrifice he was about to make. But every one knows that
feeling which, when we are unhappy, illumines (if I may so speak) our
outward seeming from the fierceness of our inward despair,--that
recklessness which is the intoxication of our grief.

By degrees Godolphin broke from his reserve. He seemed to catch the
enthusiasm of Constance; he echoed back--he led into new and more dazzling
directions--the delighted remarks of his beautiful companion. His mind,
if not profoundly learned, at least irregularly rich, in the treasures of
old times, called up a spirit from every object. The waterfall, the ruin,
the hollow cave--the steep bank crested with the olive--the airy temple,
the dark pomp of the cypress grove, and the roar of the headlong
Anio,--all he touched with the magic of the past--clad with the glories of
history and of legend--and decked ever and anon with the flowers of the
eternal Poesy that yet walks, mourning for her children, amongst the vines
and waterfalls of the ancient Tibur. And Constance, as she listened to
him, entranced, until she herself unconsciously grew silent, indulged
without reserve in that, the proudest luxury of love--pride in the beloved
object. Never had the rare and various genius of Godolphin appeared so
worthy of admiration. When his voice ceased, it seemed to Constance like
a sudden blank in the creation.

Godolphin and the young countess were several paces before the little
party, and they now took their way towards the Siren's Cave. The path
that leads to that singular spot is humid with an eternal spray; and it is
so abrupt and slippery, that in order to preserve your footing, you must
cling to the bushes that vegetate around the sides of the precipice.