James'. Many a fine lady now
sits in a doge's chair, and many a dandy listens to his doom from a
couch that has already witnessed the less inexorable decrees of the
Council of Ten.
Amid all this splendour, however, one mournful idea alone pervaded the
tortured consciousness of Lady Annabel Herbert. Daily the dark truth
stole upon her with increased conviction, that Venetia had come hither
only to die. There seemed to the agitated ear of this distracted
mother a terrible omen even in the very name of her child; and she
could not resist the persuasion that her final destiny would, in some
degree, be connected with her fanciful appellation. The physicians,
for hopeless as Lady Annabel could not resist esteeming their
interference, Venetia was now surrounded with physicians, shook their
heads, prescribed different remedies and gave contrary opinions; each
day, however, their patient became more languid, thinner and more
thin, until she seemed like a beautiful spirit gliding into the
saloon, leaning on her mother's arm, and followed by Pauncefort, who
had now learnt the fatal secret from, her mistress, and whose heart
was indeed almost broken at the prospect of the calamity that was
impending over them.
At Padua, Lady Annabel, in her mortified reveries, outraged as she
conceived by her husband, and anxious about her daughter, had schooled
herself into visiting her fresh calamities on the head of the unhappy
Herbert, to whose intrusion and irresistible influence she ascribed
all the illness of her child; but, as the indisposition of Venetia
gradually, but surely, increased, until at length it assumed so
alarming an aspect that Lady Annabel, in the distraction of her mind,
could no longer refrain from contemplating the most fatal result, she
had taught herself bitterly to regret the failure of that approaching
reconciliation which now she could not but believe would, at least,
have secured her the life of Venetia.
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