Cadurcis quitted her hand rather abruptly, and began walking up and down on the turf that surrounded the fountain.
'Devoted herself to you!' he exclaimed with a fiendish laugh, and speaking, as was his custom, between his teeth. 'Commend me to such devotion. Not content with depriving you of a father, now forsooth she must bereave you of a lover too! And this is a mother, a devoted mother! The cold-blooded, sullen, selfish, inexorable tyrant!'
'Plantagenet!' exclaimed Venetia with great animation.
'Nay, I will speak. Victim, indeed! You have ever been her slave. She a devoted mother! Ay! as devoted as a mother as she was dutiful as a wife! She has no heart; she never had a feeling. And she cajoles you with her love, her devotion, the stern hypocrite!'
'I must leave you,' said Venetia; 'I cannot bear this.'
'Oh! the truth, the truth is precious,' said Cadurcis, taking her hand, and preventing her from moving. 'Your mother, your devoted mother, has driven one man of genius from her bosom, and his country. Yet there is another. Deny me what I ask, and to-morrow's sun shall light me to another land; to this I will never return; I will blend my tears with your father's, and I will publish to Europe the double infamy of your mother. I swear it solemnly. Still I stand here, Venetia; prepared, if you will but smile upon me, to be her son, her dutiful son. Nay! her slave like you. She shall not murmur. I will be dutiful; she shall be devoted; we will all be happy,' he added in a softer tone. 'Now, now, Venetia, my happiness is on the stake, now, now.'
'I have spoken,' said Venetia. 'My heart may break, but my purpose shall not falter.'
'Then my curse upon your mother's head?' said Cadurcis, with terrible vehemency. 'May heaven rain all its plagues upon her, the Hecate!'
'I will listen no more,' exclaimed Venetia indignantly, and she moved away. She had proceeded some little distance when she paused and looked back; Cadurcis was still at the fountain, but he did not observe her. She remembered his sudden departure from Cherbury; she did not doubt that, in the present instance, he would leave them as abruptly, and that he would keep his word so solemnly given. Her heart was nearly breaking, but she could not bear the idea of parting in bitterness with the being whom, perhaps, she loved best in the world. She stopt, she called his name in a voice low indeed, but in that silent spot it reached him. He joined her immediately, but with a slow step. When he had reached her, he said, without any animation and in a frigid tone, 'I believe you called me?'
Venetia burst into tears. 'I cannot bear to part in anger, Plantagenet. I wished to say farewell in kindness. I shall always pray for your happiness. God bless you, Plantagenet!'