her up the dark passages. Here, crouching again into a recess in
the gallery outside the panelled room, she waited in terror for
the next scene of the tragedy. Julia flung open the door of the
study where her father sat writing at his table, and, standing on
the threshold in the full glare of the lamplight which illumined
the apartment, raised the pistol, cocked and aimed it. Sir Julian
had barely time to leap from his chair with a cry when she fired,
and the next instant he fell, struck by the bullet on the left temple,
and expired at his daughter's feet. At the report of the pistol
and the sound of his fall, Lady Sarah quitted her dressingroom and
ran in disordered attire into the study, where she beheld her
husband lying dead and bloody upon the floor, and Julia standing
at the entrance of the panelled chamber, with the light of madness
and murder in her eyes. Not long she stood there, however, for,
seeing Lady Sarah enter, the distracted girl threw down the empty
weapon, and flinging herself upon her mother, grasped her throat
with all the might of her frenzied being. Up and down the room
they wrestled together, two desperate women, one bent upon murder,
the other battling for her life, and neither uttered cry or groan,
so terribly earnest was the struggle. At length Lady Sarah's
strength gave way; she fell under her assailant's weight, her
face black with suffocation, and her eyes protruding from their
swelling sockets. Julia redoubled her grip. She knelt upon Lady
Sarah's breast, and held her down with the force and resolution
of a fiend, though the blood burst from the ears of her victim and
filmed her staring eyes; nor did the pitiless fingers relax until
the murderess knew her vengeance was complete. Then, she leapt
to her feet, seized Philip's pistol from the floor, and, with a
wild, pealing shriek, fled forth along the gallery, down the staircase,
and out into the park,--out into the wind, and the driving snow,