The sight of
Herbert, so changed from the form that she remembered; those tones of
heart-rending sincerity, in which he had mournfully appealed to the
influence of time and sorrow on his life, still greatly affected her.
She had indulged for a moment in a dream of domestic love, she had
cast to the winds the inexorable determination of a life, and had
mingled her tears with those of her husband and her child. And how
had she been repaid? By a degrading catastrophe, from whose revolting
associations her mind recoiled with indignation and disgust. But her
lingering feeling for her husband, her own mortification, were as
nothing compared with the harrowing anxiety she now entertained for
her daughter. To converse with Venetia on the recent occurrence was
impossible. It was a subject which admitted of no discussion. They
had passed a week at Padua, and the slightest allusion to what had
happened had never been made by either Lady Annabel or her child. It
was only by her lavish testimonies of affection that Lady Annabel
conveyed to Venetia how deeply she sympathised with her, and how
unhappy she was herself. She had, indeed, never quitted for a moment
the side of her daughter, and witnessed each day, with renewed
anguish, her deplorable condition; for Venetia continued in a state
which, to those unacquainted with her, might have been mistaken for
insensibility, but her mother knew too well that it was despair.
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