The clock of the belfry of Cherbury at this moment struck, and Venetia instantly sprang from her seat.  It reminded her of the preciousness of the present morning.  Her mother was indeed absent, but her mother would return.  Before that event a great fulfilment was to occur.  Venetia, still grasping the key, as if it were the talisman of her existence, looked up to Heaven as if she required for her allotted task an immediate and special protection; her lips seemed to move, and then she again quitted her apartment.  As she passed through an oriel in her way towards the gallery, she observed Pauncefort in the avenue of the park, moving in the direction of the keeper’s lodge.  This emboldened her.  With a hurried step she advanced along the gallery, and at length stood before the long-sealed door that had so often excited her strange curiosity.  Once she looked around; but no one was near, not a sound was heard.  With a faltering hand she touched the lock; but her powers deserted her:  for a minute she believed that the key, after all, would not solve the mystery.  And yet the difficulty arose only from her own agitation.  She rallied her courage; once more she made the trial; the key fitted with completeness, and the lock opened with ease, and Venetia found herself in a small and scantily-furnished ante-chamber.  Closing the door with noiseless care, Venetia stood trembling in the mysterious chamber, where apparently there was nothing to excite wonder.  The chamber into which the ante-room opened was still closed, and it was some minutes before the adventurous daughter of Lady Annabel could summon courage for the enterprise which awaited her.

The door yielded without an effort.  Venetia stepped into a spacious and lofty chamber.  For a moment she paused almost upon the threshold, and looked around her with a vague and misty vision.  Anon she distinguished something of the character of the apartment.  In the recess of a large oriel window that looked upon the park, and of which the blinds were nearly drawn, was an old-fashioned yet sumptuous toilet-table of considerable size, arranged as if for use.  Opposite this window, in a corresponding recess, was what might be deemed a bridal bed, its furniture being of white satin richly embroidered; the curtains half closed; and suspended from the canopy was a wreath of roses that had once emulated, or rather excelled, the lustrous purity of the hangings, but now were wan and withered.  The centre of the inlaid and polished floor of the apartment was covered with a Tournay carpet of brilliant yet tasteful decoration.  An old cabinet of fanciful workmanship, some chairs of ebony, and some girandoles of silver completed the furniture of the room, save that at its extreme end, exactly opposite to the door by which Venetia entered, covered with a curtain of green velvet, was what she concluded must be a picture.