Between
your father and myself there can be nothing to communicate, either of
fact or feeling. Now let us depart.'
'No, no, not depart!' said Venetia franticly. 'You did not say depart,
dear mother! I cannot go,' she added in a low and half-hysterical
voice.
'Desert me, then,' said the mother. 'A fitting consequence of your
private communications with your father,' she added in a tone of
bitter scorn; and Lady Annabel moved to depart, but Venetia, still
kneeling, clung to her convulsively.
'Mother, mother, you shall not go; you shall not leave me; we will
never part, mother,' continued Venetia, in a tone almost of violence,
as she perceived her mother give no indication of yielding to her
wish. 'Are my feelings then nothing?' she then exclaimed. 'Is this
your sense of my fidelity? Am I for ever to be a victim?' She loosened
her hold of her mother's hand, her mother moved on, Venetia fell upon
her forehead and uttered a faint scream. The heart of Lady Annabel
relented when she fancied her daughter suffered physical pain, however
slight; she hesitated, she turned, she hastened to her child; her
husband had simultaneously advanced; in the rapid movement and
confusion her hand touched that of Herbert.
'I yield her to you, Annabel,' said Herbert, placing Venetia in her
mother's arms.
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