‘Annabel!’ exclaimed Herbert, rapidly advancing, with an imploring gesture, and speaking in a tone of infinite anguish, ’Annabel, Annabel, even now we can be happy!’

The countenance of his wife was troubled, but its stern expression had disappeared.  The long-concealed, yet at length irrepressible, emotion of Venetia had touched her heart.  In the conflict of affection between the claims of her two parents, Lady Annabel had observed with a sentiment of sweet emotion, in spite of all the fearfulness of the meeting, that Venetia had not faltered in her devotion to her mother.  The mental torture of her child touched her to the quick.  In the excitement of her anguish, Venetia had expressed a profound sentiment, the irresistible truth of which Lady Annabel could no longer withstand.  She had too long and too fondly schooled herself to look upon the outraged wife as the only victim.  There was then, at length it appeared to this stern-minded woman, another.  She had laboured in the flattering delusion that the devotion of a mother’s love might compensate to Venetia for the loss of that other parent, which in some degree Lady Annabel had occasioned her; for the worthless husband, had she chosen to tolerate the degrading connection, might nevertheless have proved a tender father.  But Nature, it seemed, had shrunk from the vain effort of the isolated mother.  The seeds of affection for the father of her being were mystically implanted in the bosom of his child.  Lady Annabel recalled the harrowing hours that this attempt by her to curb and control the natural course and rising sympathies of filial love had cost her child, on whom she had so vigilantly practised it.  She recalled her strange aspirations, her inspired curiosity, her brooding reveries, her fitful melancholy, her terrible illness, her resignation, her fidelity, her sacrifices:  there came across the mind of Lady Annabel a mortifying conviction that the devotion to her child, on which she had so rated herself, might after all only prove a subtle form of profound selfishness; and that Venetia, instead of being the idol of her love, might eventually be the martyr of her pride.  And, thinking of these things, she wept.

This evidence of emotion, which in such a spirit Herbert knew how to estimate, emboldened him to advance; he fell on one knee before her and her daughter; gently he stole her hand, and pressed it to his lips.  It was not withdrawn, and Venetia laid her hand upon theirs, and would have bound them together had her mother been relentless.  It seemed to Venetia that she was at length happy, but she would not speak, she would not disturb the still and silent bliss of the impending reconciliation.  Was it then indeed at hand?  In truth, the deportment of Herbert throughout the whole interview, so delicate, so subdued, so studiously avoiding the slightest rivaly with his wife in the affections of their child, and so carefully abstaining from attempting in the slightest degree to control the feelings of Venetia, had not been lost upon Lady Annabel.  And when she thought of him, so changed from what he had been, grey, bent, and careworn, with all the lustre that had once so fascinated her, faded, and talking of that impending fate which his wan though spiritual countenance too clearly intimated, her heart melted.