"With my own hand!" Yes, surely; both signature and address were
perfect facsimiles of Julia's writing! What wonder that Philip
had been deceived into believing her false? Twice she read the
letter from beginning to end; then she laid her lover's corpse
gently down on the snow, and stood up erect and silent, her face
more ghastly and deathlike than the face of the dead beside her.

In a moment the whole shameful scheme had flashed upon her mind;
Virginie's treachery and clever fraud; its connection with the
torn fragment of paper which Julia had seen only a few minutes before;
the deliberate falsehood of which Lady Sarah had been guilty; the
bribery, by means of which she had probably corrupted Virginie's
fidelity; the cruel disappointment and suffering of her lover;
all these things pressed themselves upon her reeling brain, and
gave birth to the suggestions of madness.

Stooping down, she put her lithe hand upon the belt of the dead man.
There was, as she expected, a second pistol in it, the fellow of
that with which he had shot himself. It was loaded. Julia drew
it out, wrapped her mantle round it, and climbed noiselessly into
her chamber through the still open window. Crossing the room, she
passed out into the corridor beyond, and went like a shadow, swift
and silent of foot, to the door of her father's study,--an apartment
communicating, by means of an oaken door, with the panelled chamber.

Virginie, from a dark recess in the wall of the house, had heard
and noted all that passed in the garden. She saw Julia open and
read the letter; she caught the expression of her face as she
stooped for the pistol, and apprehending something of what might
follow, she crept through the window after her mistress and pursued