tly, 'but one
who is acting as she thinks right; and not only as her mind, but as
her heart prompts her.'

They had stopped in the earlier part of this conversation on a little
plot of turf surrounded by shrubs; Cadurcis walked up and down this
area with angry steps, occasionally glancing at Venetia with a look of
mortification and displeasure.

'I tell you, Venetia,' he at length said, 'that you are a little fool.
What do you mean by saying that you cannot marry me because you love
another? Is not that other, by your own account, your father? Love him
as much as you like. Is that to prevent you from loving your husband
also?'

'Plantagenet, you are rude, and unnecessarily so,' said Venetia. 'I
repeat to you again, and for the last time, that all my heart is my
father's. It would be wicked in me to marry you, because I cannot love
you as a husband should be loved. I can never love you as I love my
father. However, it is useless to talk upon this subject. I have not
even the power of marrying you if I wished, for I have dedicated
myself to my father in the name of God; and I have offered a vow, to
be registered in heaven, that thenceforth I would exist only for the
purpose of being restored to his heart.'

'I congratulate you on your parent, Miss Herbert.'

'I feel that I ought to be proud of him, though, alas I can only feel
it. But, whatever your opinion may be of my father, I beg you to
remember that you are speaking to his child.'

'I shall state my opinion respecting your father, madam, with the most
perfect unreserve, wherever and whenever I choose; quite convinced
that, however you esteem that opinion, it will not be widely different
from the real sentiments of the only parent whom you ought to respect,
and whom you are bound to obey.'

'And I can tell you, sir, that whatever your opinion is on any subject
it will never influence mine. If, indeed, I were the mistress of my
own destiny, which I am not, it would have been equally out of my
power to have acted as you have so singularly proposed. I do not wish
to marry, and marry I never will; but were it in my power, or in
accordance with my wish, to unite my fate for ever with another's, it
should at least be with one to whom I could look up with reverence,
and even with admiration. He should be at least a man, and a great
man; one with whose name the world rung; perhaps, like my father, a
genius and a poet.'

'A genius and a poet!' exclaimed Lord Cadurci