Herbert looked up to heaven as if waiting for some fresh miracle to terminate the harrowing suspense of his tortured mind; Herbert looked down upon his mysterious companion; the rose was gradually returning to her cheek, her lips seemed to tremble with reviving breath.  There was only one word more strange to his ear than that which she had uttered, but an irresistible impulse sent forth the sound.

‘Venetia!’ he exclaimed.

The eyes of the maiden slowly opened; she stared around her with a vague glance of perplexity, not unmingled with pain; she looked up; she caught the rapt gaze of her father, bending over her with fondness yet with fear; his lips moved, for a moment they refused to articulate, yet at length they again uttered, ‘Venetia!’ And the only response she made was to cling to him with nervous energy, and hide her face in his bosom.

Herbert pressed her to his heart.  Yet even now he hesitated to credit the incredible union.  Again he called her by her name, but added with rising confidence, ‘My Venetia!’

‘Your child, your child,’ she murmured.  ‘Your own Venetia.’

He pressed his lips to hers; he breathed over her a thousand blessings; she felt his tears trickling on her neck.

At length Venetia looked up and sighed; she was exhausted by the violence of her emotions:  her father relaxed his grasp with infinite tenderness, watching her with delicate solicitude; she leaned her arm upon his shoulder with downcast eyes.

Herbert gently took her disengaged hand, and pressed it to his lips.  ‘I am as in a dream,’ murmured Venetia.

‘The daughter of my heart has found her sire,’ said Herbert in an impassioned voice.  ’The father who has long lived upon her fancied image; the father, I fear, she has been bred up to hate.’

‘Oh! no, no!’ said Venetia, speaking rapidly and with a slight shiver; ’not hate! it was a secret, his being was a secret, his name was never mentioned; it was unknown.’

’A secret!  My existence a secret from my child, my beautiful fond child!’ exclaimed Herbert in a tone even more desolate than bitter.  ‘Why did they not let you at least hate me!’

‘My father!’ said Venetia, in a firmer voice, and with returning animation, yet gazing around her with a still distracted air, ’Am I with my father?  The clouds clear from my brain.  I remember that we met.  Where was it?  Was it at Arqua?  In the garden?  I am with my father!’ she continued in a rapid tone and with a wild smile.  ’Oh! let me look on him;’ and she turned round, and gazed upon Herbert with a serious scrutiny.  ‘Are you my father?’ she continued, in a still, small voice.  ’Your hair has grown grey since last I saw you; it was golden then, like mine.  I know you are my father,’ she added, after a pause, and in a tone almost of gaiety.  ’You cannot deceive me.  I know your name.  They did not tell it me; I found it out myself, but it made me very ill, very; and I do not think I have ever been quite well since.  You are Marmion Herbert.  My mother had a dog called Marmion, when I was a little girl, but I did not know I had a father then.’