Venetia took up the volume of her father's poems, which Cadurcis had
filled with his notes. How little did Plantagenet anticipate, when he
thus expressed at Athens the passing impressions of his mind, that,
ere a year had glided away, his fate would be so intimately blended
with that of Herbert! It was impossible, however, for Venetia to lose
herself in a volume which, under any other circumstances, might have
compelled her spirit! the very associations with the writers added
to the terrible restlessness of her mind. She paused each instant
to listen for the wished-for sound, but a mute stillness reigned
throughout the house and household. There was something in this deep,
unbroken silence, at a moment when anxiety was universally diffused
among the dwellers beneath that roof, and the heart of more than one
of them was throbbing with all the torture of the most awful suspense,
that fell upon Venetia's excited nerves with a very painful and even
insufferable influence. She longed for sound, for some noise that
might assure her she was not the victim of a trance. She closed her
volume with energy, and she started at the sound she had herself
created. She rose and opened the door of her chamber very softly, and
walked into the vestibule.
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