The storm still raged, Venetia had quitted the saloon in which her mother and herself had been sitting, and had repaired to the adjoining chamber to fetch a book.  The door of this room opened, as all the other entrances of the different apartments, on to the octagonal vestibule.  Just as she was quitting the room, and about to return to her mother, the door of the opposite chamber opened, and there came forward a gentleman in a Venetian dress of black velvet.  His stature was much above the middle height, though his figure, which was remarkably slender, was bowed; not by years certainly, for his countenance, though singularly emaciated, still retained traces of youth.  His hair, which he wore very long, descended over his shoulders, and must originally have been of a light golden colour, but now was severely touched with grey.  His countenance was very pallid, so colourless indeed that its aspect was almost unearthly; but his large blue eyes, that were deeply set in his majestic brow, still glittered with fire, and their expression alone gave life to a visage, which, though singularly beautiful in its outline, from its faded and attenuated character seemed rather the countenance of a corpse than of a breathing being.

The glance of the stranger caught that of Venetia, and seemed to fascinate her.  She suddenly became motionless; wildly she stared at the stranger, who, in his turn, seemed arrested in his progress, and stood still as a statue, with his eyes fixed with absorbing interest on the beautiful apparition before him.  An expression of perplexity and pain flitted over the amazed features of Venetia; and then it seemed that, by some almost supernatural effort, confusion amounting to stupefaction suddenly brightened and expanded into keen and overwhelming intelligence.  Exclaiming in a frenzied tone, ‘My father!’ Venetia sprang forward, and fell senseless on the stranger’s breast.

Such, after so much mystery, so many aspirations, so much anxiety, and so much suffering, such was the first meeting of Venetia Herbert with her father!

Marmion Herbert, himself trembling and speechless, bore the apparently lifeless Venetia into his apartment.  Not permitting her for a moment to quit his embrace, he seated himself, and gazed silently on the inanimate and unknown form he held so strangely within his arms.  Those lips, now closed as if in death, had uttered however one word which thrilled to his heart, and still echoed, like a supernatural annunciation, within his ear.  He examined with an eye of agitated scrutiny the fair features no longer sensible of his presence.  He gazed upon that transparent brow, as if he would read some secret in its pellucid veins; and touched those long locks of golden hair with a trembling finger, that seemed to be wildly seeking for some vague and miraculous proof of inexpressible identity.  The fair creature had called him ‘Father.’  His dreaming reveries had never pictured a being half