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 our sorrow!’ said her ladyship in a faint voice.

‘But this instant,’ replied the Doctor, in a tone of great anxiety.’  Immediate danger—­’

‘Is past.  She sleeps,’ replied Lady Annabel.

‘A most sudden and unaccountable attack,’ said the Doctor.

It is difficult to describe the contending emotions of the mother as her companion made this observation.  At length she replied, ’Sudden, certainly sudden; but not unaccountable.  Oh! my friend,’ she added, after a moment’s pause, ’they will not be content until they have torn my daughter from me.’

‘They tear your daughter from you!’ exclaimed Doctor Masham.  ‘Who?’

‘He, he,’ muttered Lady Annabel; her speech was incoherent, her manner very disturbed.

‘My dear lady,’ said the Doctor, gazing on her with extreme anxiety, ‘you are yourself unwell.’

Lady Annabel heaved a deep sigh; the Doctor bore her to a seat.  ’Shall I send for any one, anything?’

‘No one, no one,’ quickly answered Lady Annabel.  ’With you, at least, there is no concealment necessary.’

She leant back in her chair, the Doctor holding her hand, and standing by her side.

Still Lady Annabel continued sighing deeply:  at length she looked up and said, ‘Does she love me?  Do you think, after all, she loves me?’

‘Venetia?’ inquired the Doctor, in a low and doubtful voice, for he was greatly perplexed.

‘She has seen him; she loves him; she has forgotten her mother.’

‘My dear lady, you require rest,’ said Doctor Masham.  ’You are overcome with strange fancies.  Whom has your daughter seen?’

‘Marmion.’

‘Impossible! you forget he is—­’