He started; he had fallen into a light slumber; he had been dreaming; he thought he had heard the voice of Venetia calling him; he had forgotten where he was; he stared at the sea and sky, and recalled his dreadful consciousness.  The wave broke with a heavy plash that attracted his attention:  it was, indeed, that sound that had awakened him.  He looked around; there was some object; he started wildly from his resting-place, sprang over the cavern, and bounded on the beach.  It was a corpse; he is kneeling by its side.  It is the corpse of his cousin!  Lord Cadurcis was a fine swimmer, and had evidently made strong efforts for his life, for he was partly undressed.  In all the insanity of hope, still wilder than despair, George Cadurcis seized the body and bore it some yards upon the shore.  Life had been long extinct.  The corpse was cold and stark, the eyes closed, an expression of energy, however, yet lingering in the fixed jaw, and the hair sodden with the sea.  Suddenly Captain Cadurcis rushed to the inn and roused the household.  With a distracted air, and broken speech and rapid motion, he communicated the catastrophe.  Several persons, some bearing torches, others blankets and cordials, followed him instantly to the fatal spot.  They hurried to the body, they applied all the rude remedies of the moment, rather from the impulse of nervous excitement than with any practical purpose; for the case had been indeed long hopeless.  While Captain Cadurcis leant over the body, chafing the extremities in a hurried frenzy, and gazing intently on the countenance, a shout was heard from one of the stragglers who had recently arrived.  The sea had washed on the beach another corpse:  the form of Marmion Herbert.  It would appear that he had made no struggle to save himself, for his hand was locked in his waistcoat, where, at the moment, he had thrust the Phaedo, showing that he had been reading to the last, and was meditating on immortality when he died.

End of book VI.

BOOK VII

CHAPTER I.

It was the commencement of autumn.  The verdure of summer still lingered on the trees; the sky, if not so cloudless, was almost as refulgent as Italy; and the pigeons, bright and glancing, clustered on the roof of the hall of Cherbury.  The steward was in attendance; the household, all in deep mourning, were assembled; everything was in readiness for the immediate arrival of Lady Annabel Herbert.

‘’Tis nearly four years come Martinmas,’ said the grey-headed butler, ‘since my lady left us.’

‘And no good has come of it,’ said the housekeeper.  ’And for my part I never heard of good coming from going to foreign parts.’

‘I shall like to see Miss Venetia again,’ said a housemaid.  ’Bless her sweet face.’

‘I never expected to see her Miss Venetia again from all we heard,’ said a footman.