CHAPTER XVI.
GODOLPHIN'S RETURN HOME .-- HIS SOLILOQUY .-- LORD ERPINGHAM'S ARRIVAL AT WENDOVER CASTLE .-- THE EARL DESCRIBED .-- HIS ACCOUNT OF GODOLPHIN'S LIFE AT ROME.
With a listless step, Godolphin re-entered the threshold of his cottage-home.

He passed into a small chamber, which was yet the largest in his house.

The poor and scanty furniture scattered around; the old, tuneless, broken harpsichord; the worn and tattered carpet; the tenantless birdcage in the recess by the window; the bookshelves, containing some dozens of worthless volumes; the sofa of the last century (when, if people knew comfort, they placed it not in lounging) small, narrow, highbacked, hard, and knotted; these, just as his father had left, just as his boyhood had seen, them, greeted him with a comfortless and chill, though familiar welcome.

It was evening: he ordered a fire and lights; and leaning his face on his hand as he contemplated the fitful and dusky outbreakings of the flame through the bars of the niggard and contracted grate, he sat himself down to hold commune with his heart.
"So, I love this woman," said he, "do I?
Have I not deceived myself?
She is poor--no connection; she has nothing whereby to reinstate my house's fortunes, to rebuild this mansion, or repurchase yonder demesnes.

I love her! _I_ who have known the value of her sex so well, that I have said, again and again, I would not shackle life with a princess! Love may withstand possession--true--but not time.