‘Hush!  Pauncefort, I hear something.’

‘It’s only my lady, miss.  I know her step,’

‘Is my mother going to bed?’ said Venetia.

‘Yes,’ said Pauncefort, ’my lady sent me here to see after you.  I wish I could tell her you were asleep.’

‘It is impossible to sleep,’ said Venetia, rising up from the bed, withdrawing the curtain, and looking at the sky.  ’What a peaceful night!  I wish my heart were like the sky.  I think I will go to mamma, Pauncefort!’

’Oh! dear, Miss Venetia, I am sure I think you had better not.  If you and my lady, now, would only just go to sleep, and forget every thing till morning, it would be much better for you.  Besides, I am sure if my lady knew you were not gone to bed already, it would only make her doubly anxious.  Now, really, Miss Venetia, do take my advice, and just lie down, again.  You may be sure the moment any one arrives I will let you know.  Indeed, I shall go and tell my lady that you are lying down as it is, and very drowsy;’ and, so saying, Mistress Pauncefort caught up her candle, and bustled out of the room.

Venetia took up the volume of her father’s poems, which Cadurcis had filled with his notes.  How little did Plantagenet anticipate, when he thus expressed at Athens the passing impressions of his mind, that, ere a year had glided away, his fate would be so intimately blended with that of Herbert!  It was impossible, however, for Venetia to lose herself in a volume which, under any other circumstances, might have compelled her spirit! the very associations with the writers added to the terrible restlessness of her mind.  She paused each instant to listen for the wished-for sound, but a mute stillness reigned throughout the house and household.  There was something in this deep, unbroken silence, at a moment when anxiety was universally diffused among the dwellers beneath that roof, and the heart of more than one of them was throbbing with all the torture of the most awful suspense, that fell upon Venetia’s excited nerves with a very painful and even insufferable influence.  She longed for sound, for some noise that might assure her she was not the victim of a trance.  She closed her volume with energy, and she started at the sound she had herself created.  She rose and opened the door of her chamber very softly, and walked into the vestibule.  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.