England.  There was no time to be lost, and there was no one to be entrusted except George.  He had to hasten to Genoa to make all these preparations, and for two days he was absent from the villa.  When he returned, Lady Annabel saw him, but Venetia was for a long time invisible.  The moment she grew composed, she expressed a wish to her mother instantly to return to Cherbury.  All the arrangements necessarily devolved upon George Cadurcis.  It was his study that Lady Annabel should be troubled upon no point.  The household were discharged, all the affairs were wound up, the felucca hired which was to bear them to Genoa, and in readiness, before he notified to them that the hour of departure had arrived.  The most bitter circumstance was looking again upon the sea.  It seemed so intolerable to Venetia, that their departure was delayed more than one day in consequence; but it was inevitable; they could reach Genoa in no other manner.  George carried Venetia in his arms to the boat, with her face covered with a shawl, and bore her in the same manner to the hotel at Genoa, where their travelling carriage awaited them.

They travelled home rapidly.  All seemed to be impelled, as it were, by a restless desire for repose.  Cherbury was the only thought in Venetia’s mind.  She observed nothing; she made no remark during their journey; they travelled often throughout the night; but no obstacles occurred, no inconveniences.  There was one in this miserable society whose only object in life was to support Venetia under her terrible visitation.  Silent, but with an eye that never slept, George Cadurcis watched Venetia as a nurse might a child.  He read her thoughts, he anticipated her wishes without inquiring them; every arrangement was unobtrusively made that could possibly consult her comfort.

They passed through London without stopping there.  George would not leave them for an instant; nor would he spare a thought to his own affairs, though they urgently required his attention.  The change in his position gave him no consolation; he would not allow his passport to be made out with his title; he shuddered at being called Lord Cadurcis; and the only reason that made him hesitate about attending them to Cherbury was its contiguity to his ancestral seat, which he resolved never to visit.  There never in the world was a less selfish and more single-hearted man than George Cadurcis.  Though the death of his cousin had invested him with one of the most ancient coronets in England, a noble residence and a fair estate, he would willingly have sacrificed his life to have recalled Plantagenet to existence, and to have secured the happiness of Venetia Herbert.

CHAPTER II.