his wife had already arrived at
Venice. She was more interested in meeting the young married couple
than in awaiting the result of the hard bargaining which delayed the
engagement of the new dancer; and she volunteered to make her brother's
apologies, if his theatrical business caused him to be late in keeping
his appointment at the honeymoon festival.

Mrs. Norbury's experience of Number Fourteen differed entirely from her
brother Henry's experience of the room.

Failing asleep as readily as usual, her repose was disturbed by a
succession of frightful dreams; the central figure in every one of them
being the figure of her dead brother, the first Lord Montbarry. She
saw him starving in a loathsome prison; she saw him pursued by
assassins, and dying under their knives; she saw him drowning in
immeasurable depths of dark water; she saw him in a bed on fire,
burning to death in the flames; she saw him tempted by a shadowy
creature to drink, and dying of the poisonous draught. The reiterated
horror of these dreams had such an effect on her that she rose with the
dawn of day, afraid to trust herself again in bed. In the old times,
she had been noted in the family as the one member of it who lived on
affectionate terms with Montbarry. His other sister and his brothers
were constantly quarrelling with him. Even his mother owned that her
eldest son was of all her children the child whom she least liked.
Sensible and resolute woman as she was, Mrs. Norbury shuddered with
terror as she sat at the window of her room, watching the sunrise, and
thinking of her dreams.

She made the first excuse that occurred to her, when her maid came in
at the usual hour, and noticed how ill she looked. The woman was of so
superstitious a temperament that it would have been in the last degree
indiscreet to trust her with the truth. Mrs. Norbury merely remarked
that she had not found the bed quite to her liking, on account of the
large size of it. She was accustomed at home, as her maid knew, to
sleep in a small bed. Informed of this objection later in the day, the
manager regretted that he could only offer to the lady the choice of
one other bedchamber, numbered Thirty-eight, and situated immediately
over the bedchamber which she desired to leave. Mrs. Norbury accepted
the proposed change of quarters. She was now about to pass her second
night in the room occupied in the old days of the palace by Baron Rivar.

Once more, she fell asleep as usu