Quite breathless, she listened, and again Venetia spoke,
and again called upon her father. Now, with a great effort, Lady
Annabel stole on tiptoe to the bedside of her daughter. Venetia was
lying on her back, her eyes were closed, her lips still as it were
quivering with the strange word they had dared to pronounce. Again
her voice sounded; she chanted, in an unearthly voice, verses. The
perspiration stood in large drops on the pallid forehead of the mother
as she listened. Still Venetia proceeded; and Lady Annabel, throwing
herself on her knees, held up her hands to Heaven in an agony of
astonishment, terror, and devotion.
Now there was again silence; but her mother remained apparently buried
in prayer. Again Venetia spoke; again she repeated the mysterious
stanzas. With convulsive agony her mother listened to every fatal line
that she unconsciously pronounced.
The secret was then discovered. Yes! Venetia must have penetrated the
long-closed chamber; all the labours of years had in a moment been
subverted; Venetia had discovered her parent, and the effects of the
discovery might, perhaps, be her death. Then it was that Lady Annabel,
in the torture of her mind, poured forth her supplications that the
life or the heart of her child might never be lost to her, 'Grant, O
merciful God!' she exclaimed, 'that this sole hope of my being may be
spared to me.
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