the grief that even such a dispensation might occasion, so keen, so overwhelming, that after fourteen long years his name might not be permitted, even for an instant, to pass the lips of his bereaved wife?  Was his child to be deprived of the only solace for his loss, the consolation of cherishing his memory?  Strange, passing strange indeed, and bitter!  At Cherbury the family of Herbert were honoured only from tradition.  Until the arrival of Lady Annabel, as we have before mentioned, they had not resided at the hall for more than half a century.  There were no old retainers there from whom Venetia might glean, without suspicion, the information for which she panted.  Slight, too, as was Venetia’s experience of society, there were times when she could not resist the impression that her mother was not happy; that there was some secret sorrow that weighed upon her spirit, some grief that gnawed at her heart.  Could it be still the recollection of her lost sire?  Could one so religious, so resigned, so assured of meeting the lost one in a better world, brood with a repining soul over the will of her Creator?  Such conduct was entirely at variance with all the tenets of Lady Annabel.  It was not thus she consoled the bereaved, that she comforted the widow, and solaced the orphan.  Venetia, too, observed everything and forgot nothing.  Not an incident of her earliest childhood that was not as fresh in her memory as if it had occurred yesterday.  Her memory was naturally keen; living in solitude, with nothing to distract it, its impressions never faded away.  She had never forgotten her mother’s tears the day that she and Plantagenet had visited Marringhurst.  Somehow or other Dr. Masham seemed connected with this sorrow.  Whenever Lady Annabel was most dispirited it was after an interview with that gentleman; yet the presence of the Doctor always gave her pleasure, and he was the most kind-hearted and cheerful of men.  Perhaps, after all, it was only her illusion; perhaps, after all, it was the memory of her father to which her mother was devoted, and which occasionally overcame her; perhaps she ventured to speak of him to Dr. Masham, though not to her daughter, and this might account for that occasional agitation which Venetia had observed at his visits.  And yet, and yet, and yet; in vain she reasoned.  There is a strange sympathy which whispers convictions that no evidence can authorise, and no arguments dispel.  Venetia Herbert, particularly as she grew older, could not refrain at times from yielding to the irresistible belief that her existence was enveloped in some mystery.  Mystery too often presupposes the idea of guilt.  Guilt!  Who was guilty?  Venetia shuddered at the current of her own thoughts.  She started from the garden seat in which she had fallen into this dangerous and painful reverie; flew to her mother, who received her with smiles; and buried her face in the bosom of Lady Annabel.

CHAPTER II.