There was a word which must be
spoken: it trembled on her convulsive lip, and would not sound. She
looked around her with an eye glittering with unnatural fire, as if to
supplicate some invisible and hovering spirit to her rescue, or that
some floating and angelic chorus might warble the thrilling word whose
expression seemed absolutely necessary to her existence. Her cheek
is flushed, her eye wild and tremulous, the broad blue veins of her
immaculate brow quivering and distended; her waving hair falls back
over her forehead, and rustles like a wood before the storm. She seems
a priestess in the convulsive throes of inspiration, and about to
breathe the oracle. The picture, as we have mentioned, was hung in
a broad and massy frame. In the centre of its base was worked an
escutcheon, and beneath the shield this inscription:
MARMION HERBERT, AET. XX.
Yet there needed not these letters to guide the agitated spirit of
Venetia, for, before her eye had reached them, the word was spoken;
and falling on her knees before the portrait, the daughter of Lady
Annabel had exclaimed, 'My father!'
CHAPTER V.
The daughter still kneels before the form of the father, of whom she
had heard for the first time in her life. He is at length discovered.
Pages:
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192