It was one evening that a foreboding emotion of this kind weighed heavily
on Constance. She pressed Godolphin's hand in hers, and when he returned
the pressure, she threw herself on his neck, and burst into tears.
Godolphin was alarmed; he covered her cheek with kisses, he sought the
cause of her emotion.

"There is no cause," answered Constance, recovering herself, but speaking
in a faltering voice, "only I feel the impossibility that this happiness
can last; its excess makes me shudder."

As she spoke, the wind rose and swept mourningly over the large leaves of
the chestnut-tree beneath which they stood: the serene stillness of the
evening seemed gone; an unquiet and melancholy spirit was loosened abroad,
and the chill of the sudden change which is so frequent to our climate,
came piercingly upon them. Godolphin was silent for some moments, for the
thought found a sympathy in his own.

"And is it truly so?" he said at last; "is there really to be no permanent
happiness for us below? Is pain always to tread the heels of pleasure?
Are we never to say the harbour is reached, and we are safe? No, my
Constance," he added, warming into the sanguine vein that traversed even
his most desponding moods, "no! let us not cherish this dark belief; there
is no experience for the future; one hour lies to the next; if what has
been seem thus chequered, it is no type of what may be. We have
discovered in each other that world that was long lost to our eyes; we
cannot lose it again; death only can separate us!"

"Ah, death!" said Constance, shuddering.

"Do not recoil at that word, my Constance, for we are yet in the noon of