It seemed to Venetia that even before they met, from the very moment that his name had so strangely caught her eye in the volume on the first evening she had visited her relations, that her spirit suddenly turned to him.  She had never heard that name mentioned since without a fluttering of the heart which she could not repress, and an emotion she could ill conceal.  She loved to hear others talk of him, and yet scarcely dared speak of him herself.  She recalled her emotion at unexpectedly seeing his portrait when with her aunt, and her mortification when her mother deprived her of the poem which she sighed to read.  Day after day something seemed to have occurred to fix her brooding thoughts with fonder earnestness on his image.  At length they met.  Her emotion when she first recognised him at Ranelagh and felt him approaching her, was one of those tumults of the heart that form almost a crisis in our sensations.  With what difficulty had she maintained herself!  Doubtful whether he would even formally acknowledge her presence, her vision as if by fascination had nevertheless met his, and grew dizzy as he passed.  In the interval that had elapsed between his first passing and then joining her, what a chaos was her mind!  What a wild blending of all the scenes and incidents of her life!  What random answers had she made to those with whom she had been before conversing with ease and animation!  And then, when she unexpectedly found Cadurcis at her side, and listened to the sound of that familiar voice, familiar and yet changed, expressing so much tenderness in its tones, and in its words such deference and delicate respect, existence felt to her that moment affluent with a blissful excitement of which she had never dreamed!

Her life was a reverie until they met again, in which she only mused over his fame, and the strange relations of their careers.  She had watched the conduct of her mother to him at dinner with poignant sorrow; she scarcely believed that she should have an opportunity of expressing to him her sympathy.  And then what had followed?  A conversation, every word of which had touched her heart; a conversation that would have entirely controlled her feelings even if he had not already subjected them.  The tone in which he so suddenly had pronounced ‘Venetia,’ was the sweetest music to which she had ever listened.  His allusion to her father had drawn tears, which could not be restrained even in a crowded saloon.  Now she wept plenteously.  It was so generous, so noble, so kind, so affectionate!  Dear, dear Cadurcis, is it wonderful that you should be loved?