“Poor child!” said Godolphin, gazing on her; “art thou not aware that thou askest thine own dishonour?”
Lucilla seemed surprised:—“Is it dishonour to love? They do not think so in Italy. It is wrong for a maiden to confess it; but that thou hast forgiven me. And if to follow thee—to sit with thee—to be near thee—bring aught of evil to myself, not thee,—let me incur the evil: it can be nothing compared to the agony of thy absence!”
She looked up timidly as she spoke, and saw, with a sort of terror, that his face worked with emotions which seemed to choke his answer. “If,” she cried passionately, “if I have said what pains thee—if I have asked what would give dishonour, as thou callest it, or harm, to thyself, forgive me—I knew it not—and leave me. But if it were not of thyself that thou didst speak, believe that thou hast done me but a cruel mercy. Let me go with thee, I implore! I have no friend here: no one loves me. I hate the faces I gaze upon; I loathe the voices I hear. And, were it for nothing else, thou remindest me of him who is gone:—thou art familiar to me—every look of thee breathes of my home, of my household recollections. Take me with thee, beloved stranger!—or leave me to die—I will not survive thy loss!”
“You speak of your father: know you that, were I to grant what you, in your childish innocence, so unthinkingly request, he might curse me from his grave?”
“O God, not so!—mine is the prayer—be mine the guilt, if guilt there be. But is it not unkinder in thee to desert his daughter than to protect her?”
There was a great, a terrible struggle in Godolphin’s breast. “What,” said he, scarcely knowing what he said,—“what will the world think of you if you fly with a stranger?”
“There is no world to me but thee!”
“What will your uncle—your relations say?”
“I care not; for I shall not hear them.”
“No, no; this must not be!” said Godolphin proudly, and once more conquering himself. “Lucilla, I would give up every other dream or hope in life to feel that I might requite this devotion by passing my life with thee: to feel that I might grant what thou askest without wronging thy innocence; but—but—”