"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 [pg 225]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. "It is then a woman?"