'
'He was so like his picture at Cherbury,' replied Venetia.
'Cherbury!' exclaimed Herbert, with a deep-drawn sigh.
'Only your hair has grown grey, dear father; but it is long, quite as
long as in your picture.'
'Her dog called Marmion!' murmured Herbert to himself, 'and my
portrait, too! You saw your father's portrait, then, every day, love?'
'Oh, no! said Venetia, shaking her head, 'only once, only once. And I
never told mamma. It was where no one could go, but I went there one
day. It was in a room that no one ever entered except mamma, but
I entered it. I stole the key, and had a fever, and in my fever I
confessed all. But I never knew it. Mamma never told me I confessed
it, until many, many years afterwards. It was the first, the only time
she ever mentioned to me your name, my father.'
'And she told you to shun me, to hate me? She told you I was a
villain, a profligate, a demon? eh? eh? Was it not so, Venetia?'
'She told me that you had broken her heart,' said Venetia; 'and she
prayed to God that her child might not be so miserable.'
'Oh, my Venetia!' exclaimed Herbert, pressing her to his breast,
and in a voice stifled with emotion, 'I feel now we might have been
happy!'
In the meantime the prolonged absence of her daughter surprised
Lady Annabel.
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