‘A genius and a poet!’ exclaimed Lord Cadurcis, in a fury, stamping with passion; ’are these fit terms to use when speaking of the most abandoned profligate of his age?  A man whose name is synonymous with infamy, and which no one dares to breathe in civilised life; whose very blood is pollution, as you will some day feel; who has violated every tie, and derided every principle, by which society is maintained; whose life is a living illustration of his own shameless doctrines; who is, at the same time, a traitor to his king and an apostate from his God!’

Curiosity, overpowering even indignation, had permitted Venetia to listen even to this tirade.  Pale as her companion, but with a glance of withering scorn, she exclaimed, ’Passionate and ill-mannered boy! words cannot express the disgust and the contempt with which you inspire me.’  She spoke and she disappeared.  Cadurcis was neither able nor desirous to arrest her flight.  He remained rooted to the ground, muttering to himself the word ‘boy!’ Suddenly raising his arm and looking up to the sky, he exclaimed, ’The illusion is vanished!  Farewell, Cherbury! farewell, Cadurcis! a wider theatre awaits me!  I have been too long the slave of soft affections!  I root them out of my heart for ever!’ and, fitting the action to the phrase, it seemed that he hurled upon the earth all the tender emotions of his soul.  ’Woman! henceforth you shall be my sport!  I have now no feeling but for myself.  When she spoke I might have been a boy; I am a boy no longer.  What I shall do I know not; but this I know, the world shall ring with my name; I will be a man, and a great man!’

CHAPTER VIII.

The agitation of Venetia on her return was not unnoticed by her mother; but Lady Annabel ascribed it to a far different cause than the real one.  She was rather surprised when the breakfast passed, and Lord Cadurcis did not appear; somewhat perplexed when her daughter seized the earliest opportunity of retiring to her own chamber; but, with that self-restraint of which she was so complete a mistress, Lady Annabel uttered no remark.

Once more alone, Venetia could only repeat to herself the wild words that had burst from Plantagenet’s lips in reference to her father.  What could they mean?  His morals might be misrepresented, his opinions might be misunderstood; stupidity might not comprehend his doctrines, malignity might torture them; the purest sages have been accused of immorality, the most pious philosophers have been denounced as blasphemous:  but, ‘a traitor to his king,’ that was a tangible, an intelligible proposition, one with which all might grapple, which could be easily disproved if false, scarcely propounded were it not true.  ‘False to his God!’ How false?  Where?  When?  What mystery involved her life?  Unhappy girl! in vain she struggled with the overwhelming burden of her sorrows.  Now she regretted that she had quarrelled with Cadurcis; it was evident that