In a little while this feeling passed away, and, though still nervous and trembling, the young girl smiled at her own alarm, as she took up the billet, which was directed to herself in a delicate feminine hand, with the usual form of superscription— "To Julia Serena, health"— although the writer’s name was omitted. She gazed at it for a moment, wondering from whom it could come; since she had no habitual correspondent, and the hand-writing, though beautiful, was strange to her. She opened it, and read, her wonder and agitation increasing with every line— "You love Paullus Arvina," thus it ran, "and are loved by him. He is worthy all your affection. Are you worthy of him, I know not. I love him also, but alas! less happy, am not loved again, nor hope to be, nor indeed deserve it! They tell me you are beautiful; I have seen you, and yet I know not—they told me once that I too was beautiful, and yet I know not! I know this only, that I am desperate, and base, and miserable! Yet fear me not, nor mistake me. I love Paullus, yet would not have him mine, now; no! not to be happy—as to be his would render me. Yet had it not been for you, I might have been virtuous, honourable, happy, _his_—for winning him from me, you won from me hope; and with hope virtue; and with virtue honour! Ought I not then to hate you, Julia? Perchance I ought—to do so were at least Roman—and hating to avenge! Perchance, if I _hoped_, I should. But hoping nothing, I hate nothing, dread nothing, and wish nothing.—Yea! by the Gods! I wish to know Paullus happy—yea! more, I wish, even at cost of my own misery, to make him happy. Shall I do so, by making him yours, Julia? I think so, for be sure—be sure, he loves you. Else had he yielded to my blandishments, to my passion, to my beauty! for I am—by the Gods! I am, though he sees it not, as beautiful as thou. And I am proud likewise—or was proud once—for misery has conquered pride in me; or what is weaker yet, and baser—love!" "I think you will make him happy. You can if you will. Do so, by all the Gods! I adjure you do so; and if you do not, tremble!—tremble, I say—for think, if I sacrifice myself to win bliss for him—think, girl, how gladly, how triumphantly, I would destroy a rival, who should fail to do that, for which alone I spare her. "Spare her! nay, but much more; for I can save her—can and will. "Strange things will come to pass ere long, and terrible; and to no one so terrible as to you. "There is a man in Rome, so powerful, that the Gods, only, if there be Gods, can compare with him—so haughty in ambition, that stood he second in Olympus, he would risk all things to be first—so cruel, that the dug-drawn Hyrcanian tigress were pitiful compared to him—so reckless of all things divine or human, that, did his own mother stand between him and his vengeance, he would strike through her heart to gain it. "This man hath Paullus made his foe—he hath crossed his path; he hath _foiled_ him!