If I offended you, however, forgive me, I pray you; I pray
sincerely--warmly. God knows I have suffered myself enough from idle
words, and from the slighting opinion with which this hard world visits
the poor, not to feel deep regret and shame if I wound, by like means,
another, more especially"--Constance's voice trembled,--"more especially
_you!_"

As she spoke, she turned her eyes on Godolphin, and they were full of
tears. The tenderness of her voice, her look, melted him at once. Was it
to him, indeed, that the haughty Constance addressed the words of kindness
and apology?--to him whose intrinsic circumstances she had heard described
as so unworthy of her, and, his reason told him, with such justice?

"Oh, Miss Vernon!" said he, passionately; "Miss Vernon--Constance--dear,
dear Constance! dare I call you so? hear me one word. I love you with a
love which leaves me no words to tell it. I know my faults, my poverty,
my unworthiness; but--but--may I--may I hope?"

And all the woman was in Constance's cheek, as she listened. That cheek,
how richly was it dyed! Her eyes drooped; her bosom heaved. How every
word in those broken sentences sank into her heart! never was a tone
forgotten. The child may forget its mother, and the mother desert the
child: but never, never from a woman's heart departs the memory of the
first confession of love from him whom she first loves! She lifted her
eyes, and again withdrew them, and again gazed.

"This must not be," at last she said; "no, no! it is folly, madness in
both!"

"Not so; nay, not so!" whispered Godolphin, in the softest notes of a