And wreak thy needful wrath on my resigned breast!
An hour elapsed, and Venetia did not move. Over and over again she
conned the only address from the lips of her father that had ever
reached her ear. A strange inspiration seconded the exertion of an
exercised memory. The duty was fulfilled, the task completed. Then
a sound was heard without. The thought that her mother had returned
occurred to her; she looked up, the big tears streaming down her face;
she listened, like a young hind just roused by the still-distant
huntsman, quivering and wild: she listened, and she sprang up,
replaced the volume, arranged the chair, cast one long, lingering,
feverish glance at the portrait, skimmed through the room, hesitated
one moment in the ante-chamber; opened, as all was silent, the no
longer mysterious door, turned the noiseless lock, tripped lightly
along the vestibule; glided into her mother's empty apartment,
reposited the key that had opened so many wonders in the casket; and,
then, having hurried to her own chamber, threw herself on her bed in a
paroxysm of contending emotions, that left her no power of pondering
over the strange discovery that had already given a new colour to her
existence.
CHAPTER VI.
Her mother had not returned; it was a false alarm; but Venetia could
not quit her bed.
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