ridal bed, and marked the missing rose in the garland: it was
as she expected. She seated herself then in the chair opposite the
portrait, on which she gazed with a glance rather stern than fond.

'Marmion,' she exclaimed, 'for fifteen years, a solitary votary,
I have mourned over, in this temple of baffled affections, the
inevitable past. The daughter of our love has found her way, perhaps
by an irresistible destiny, to a spot sacred to my long-concealed
sorrows. At length she knows her father. May she never know more! May
she never learn that the being, whose pictured form has commanded her
adoration, is unworthy of those glorious gifts that a gracious Creator
has bestowed upon him! Marmion, you seem to smile upon me; you seem
to exult in your triumph over the heart of your child. But there is a
power in a mother's love that yet shall baffle you. Hitherto I have
come here to deplore the past; hitherto I have come here to dwell
upon the form that, in spite of all that has happened, I still was,
perhaps, weak enough, to love. Those feelings are past for ever. Yes!
you would rob me of my child, you would tear from my heart the only
consolation you have left me. But Venetia shall still be mine; and
I, I am no longer yours. Our love, our still lingering love, has
vanished. You have been my enemy, now I am yours. I gaze upon your
portrait for the last time; and thus I prevent the magical fascination
of that face again appealing to the sympathies of my child. Thus and
thus!' She seized the ancient dagger that we have mentioned as lying
on the volume, and, springing on the chair, she plunged it into the
canvas; then, tearing with unflinching resolution the severed parts,
she scattered the fragments over the chamber, shook into a thousand
leaves the melancholy garland, tore up the volume of his enamoured
Muse, and then quitting the chamber, and locking and double locking
the door, she descended the staircase, and proceeding to the great
well of Cherbury, hurled into it the fatal key.

'Oh! my lady,' said Mistress Pauncefort, as she met Lady Annabel
returning in the vestibule, 'Doctor Masham is here.'

'Is he?' said Lady Annabel, as calm as usual. 'I will see him before I
lie down. Do not go into Venetia's room. She sleeps, and Mr. Hawkins
has promised me to let me know when she wakes.'

CHAPTER VIII.

As Lady Annabel entered the terrace-room, Doctor Masham came forward
and grasped her hand.

'You have heard of o