loser to his bosom.

But whether it was this movement, or something in his words that aroused
her, she started from his arms in a moment; and stood erect and rigid,
pale still and agitated, but no longer trembling. She raised her hands to
her brow, and put away the profusion of rich auburn ringlets, which had
fallen down dishevelled over her eyes, and gazed at him stedfastly,
strangely, as she had never gazed at him before.

"Your own Julia!" she said, in slow accents, scarce louder than a whisper,
but full of strong and painful meaning. "Oh! I adjure you, by the Gods! by
all you love! or hope! Are you false to me, Paullus!"

"False! Julia!" he exclaimed, starting, and the blood rushing consciously
to his bold face.

"I am answered!" she said, collecting herself, with a desperate effort.
"It is well--the Gods guard you!--Leave me!"

"Leave you!" he cried. "By earth, and sea, and heaven, and all that they
contain! I know not what you mean."

"Know you this writing, then?" she asked him, reaching the letter from the
table, and holding it before his eyes.

"No more than I know, what so strangely moves you," he answered; and she
saw, by the unaffected astonishment which pervaded all his features, that
he spoke truly.

"Read it," she said, somewhat more composed; "and tell me, who is the
writer of it. You must know."

Before he had read six lines, it was clear to him that it must come from
Lucia, and no words can describe the agony, the eager intense torture of
anticipation, with which he perused it, devouring every word, and at every
word expecting to find the damning record of his falsehood inscribed in
characters, that should admit of no denial.

Before, however, he had reached the middle of the letter, he felt that he
could bear the scrutiny of that pale girl no longer; and, lowering the
strip of vellum on which it was written, met her eye firmly.

For he was resolute for once to do the true and honest thing, let what
might come of it. The weaker points of his character were vanishing
rapidly, and the last few eventful days had done the work of years upon
his mind; and all that work was salutary.

She, too, read something in the expression of his eye, which led her to
hope--what, she knew not; and she smiled faintly, as she said--

"You know the writer, Paullus?"

"Julia, I know her," he replied steadily.

"Her!" she said, laying an emphasis on the word, but how affected by it
Arvina could not judge. "I