"Alas!" answered Constance, "life betrays few of its past signs by outward
token. If you have no wiser art than that drawn from the lines and
features of our countenances, I shall still remain what I am now--an
unbeliever in your powers."

"The brow, and the lip, and the eye, and the expression of each and all,"
answered Liehbur, "are not the lying index you suppose them."

"Then," rejoined Constance, "by those signs will I read your own destiny,
as you would read mine."

The sibyl started, and waved her hand impatiently; but Constance
proceeded.

"Your birth, despite your fair locks, was under a southern sky; you were
nursed in the delusions you now teach; you were loved, and left alone; you
are in the country of your lover. Is it not so?--am I not an oracle in my
turn?"

The mysterious Liehbur fell back in her chair; her lips apart and
blanched--her hands clasped--her eyes fixed upon her visitant.

"Who are you?" she cried at last, in a shrill tone; "who, of my own sex,
knows my wretched history? Speak, speak!--in mercy speak! tell me more!
convince me that you have but vainly guessed my secret, or that you have a
right to know it!"

"Did not your father forsake, for the blue skies of Rome, his own colder
shores?" continued Constance, adopting the heightened and romantic tone
of the one she addressed; and, "Percy Godolphin--is that name still