’Here also.  He has spoken to her:  she loves him:  she will recover:  she will fly to him; sooner let us both die!’

‘Dear lady!’

’She knows everything.  Fate has baffled me; we cannot struggle with fate.  She is his child; she is like him; she is not like her mother.  Oh! she hates me; I know she hates me.’

‘Hush! hush! hush!’ said the Doctor, himself very agitated.  ’Venetia loves you, only you.  Why should she love any one else?’

’Who can help it?  I loved him.  I saw him.  I loved him.  His voice was music.  He has spoken to her, and she yielded:  she yielded in a moment.  I stood by her bedside.  She would not speak to me; she would not know me; she shrank from me.  Her heart is with her father:  only with him.’

‘Where did she see him?  How?’

’His room:  his picture.  She knows all.  I was away with you, and she entered his chamber.’

‘Ah!’

’Oh!  Doctor, you have influence with her.  Speak to her.  Make her love me!  Tell her she has no father; tell her he is dead.’

‘We will do that which is well and wise,’ replied Doctor Masham:  ’at present let us be calm; if you give way, her life may be the forfeit.  Now is the moment for a mother’s love.’

’You are right.  I should not have left her for an instant.  I would not have her wake and find her mother not watching over her.  But I was tempted.  She slept; I left her for a moment; I went to destroy the spell.  She cannot see him again.  No one shall see him again.  It was my weakness, the weakness of long years; and now I am its victim.’

’Nay, nay, my sweet lady, all will be quite well.  Be but calm; Venetia will recover.’

’But will she love me?  Oh! no, no, no!  She will think only of him.  She will not love her mother.  She will yearn for her father now.  She has seen him, and she will not rest until she is in his arms.  She will desert me, I know it.’

‘And I know the contrary,’ said the Doctor, attempting to reassure her; ’I will answer for Venetia’s devotion to you.  Indeed she has no thought but your happiness, and can love only you.  When there is a fitting time, I will speak to her; but now, now is the time for repose.  And you must rest, you must indeed.’

’Rest!  I cannot.  I slumbered in the chair last night by her bedside, and a voice roused me.  It was her own.  She was speaking to her father.  She told him how she loved him; how long, how much she thought of him; that she would join him when she was well, for she knew he was not dead; and, if he were dead, she would die also.  She never mentioned me.’

‘Nay! the light meaning of a delirious brain.’  ’Truth, truth, bitter, inevitable truth.  Oh!  Doctor, I could bear all but this; but my child, my beautiful fond child, that made up for all my sorrows.  My joy, my hope, my life!  I knew it would be so; I knew he would have her heart.  He said she never could be alienated from him; he said she never could be taught to hate him.  I did not teach her to hate him.  I said nothing.  I deemed, fond, foolish mother, that the devotion of my life might bind her to me.  But what is a mother’s love?  I cannot contend with him.  He gained the mother; he will gain the daughter too.’