life; why bring, like the Egyptian, the spectre to the feast? And, after
all, if death come while we thus love, it is better than change and
time--better than custom which palls--better than age which chills. Oh!"
continued Godolphin, passionately, "oh! if this narrow shoal and sand of
time be but a breathing-spot in the great heritage of immortality, why
cheat ourselves with words so vague as life and death? What is the
difference? At most, the entrance in and the departure from one scene in
our wide career. How many scenes are left to us! We do but hasten our
journey, not close it. Let us believe this, Constance, and cast from us
all fear of our disunion."

As he spoke, Constance's eyes were fixed upon his face, and the deep calm
that reigned there sank into her soul, and silenced its murmurs. The
thought of futurity is that which Godolphin (because it is so with all
idealists) must have revolved with the most frequent fervour; but it was a
thought which he so rarely touched upon, that it was the first and only
time Constance ever heard it breathed from his lips.

They turned into the house; and the mark is still in that page of the
volume which they read, where the melodious accents of Godolphin died upon
the heart of Constance. Can she ever turn to it again?

CHAPTER LXVIII.

THE LAST CONVERSATION BETWEEN GODOLPHIN AND CONSTANCE.--HIS THOUGHTS AND
SOLITARY WALK AMIDST THE SCENES OF HIS YOUTH.--THE LETTER.--THE DEPARTURE.

They had denied themselves to all the visitors who had attacked the
Priory; but on their first arrival, they had deemed it necessary to
conciliate their neighbours by concentrating into one formal act of