There were caps, and cloaks, and whips, and
canes of Cadurcis and her father, lying about in familiar confusion.
It seemed impossible but that they were sleeping, as usual, under the
same roof. And where were they? That she should live and be unable to
answer that terrible question! When she felt the utter helplessness of
all her strong sympathy towards them, it seemed to her that she must
go mad. She gazed around her with a wild and vacant stare. At the
bottom of her heart there was a fear maturing into conviction too
horrible for expression. She returned to her own chamber, and the
exhaustion occasioned by her anxiety, and the increased coolness of
the night, made her at length drowsy. She threw herself on the bed and
slumbered.
She started in her sleep, she awoke, she dreamed they had come home.
She rose and looked at the progress of the night. The night was waning
fast; a grey light was on the landscape; the point of day approached.
Venetia stole softly to her mother's room, and entered it with a
soundless step. Lady Annabel had not retired to bed. She had sat up
the whole night, and was now asleep. A lamp on a small table was
burning at her side, and she held, firmly grasped in her hand, the
letter of her husband, which he had addressed to her at Venice, and
which she had been evidently reading.
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