Now Virginie Giraud was the friend as well as the attendant of Sir Julian’s daughter, and it was Virginie therefore who, after the occurrence of this outbreak, was despatched to Philip with a note of warning from his mistress.  Naturally the lover returned an answer by the same means, and from that hour Virginie continued to act as agent between the two, carrying letters to and fro, giving counsel and arranging meetings.  Meanwhile the bridal day was fixed by the parent Lorringtons, and elaborate preparations were made for a wedding festival which should be the wonderment and admiration of the county.  The breakfast room was decorated with lavish splendour, the richest apparel bespoken for the bride, and all the wealthy and titled relatives of both contracting families were invited to the pageant.  Nor were Philip and Julia idle.  It was arranged between them that, at eleven o’clock on the night of the day preceding the intended wedding, the young man should present himself beneath Julia’s window, Virginie being on the watch and in readiness to accompany the flight of the lovers.  All three, under cover of the darkness, should then steal down the avenue of the coach-drive and make their exit by the shrubbery gate, the key of which Virginie already had in keeping.  The appointed evening came,—­the 22nd of December.  Snow lay deep upon the ground, and more threatened to fall before dawn, but Philip had engaged to provide horses equal to any emergency of weather, and the darkness of the night lent favor to the enterprise.  Virginie’s behavior all that day had somehow seemed unaccountable to her mistress.  The maid’s face was pallid and wore a strange expression of anxiety and apprehension.  She winced and trembled when Julia’s glance rested upon her, and her hands quivered violently while she helped the latter to adjust her hood and mantle as the hour of assignation approached.  Endeavouring, however, to persuade herself that this strange conduct arose from a feeling of excitement or nervousness natural under the circumstances, Julia used a hundred kind words and tender gestures to reassure and support her companion.  But the mote she consoled or admonished, the more agitated Virginie became, and matters stood in this condition when eleven o’clock arrived.

Julia waited at her chamber window, which was not above three feet from the ground without, her hood and mantle donned, listening eagerly for the sound of her lover’s voice; and the French girl leant behind her against the closed door, nervously tearing to fragments a piece of paper she had taken from her pocket a minute ago.  These torn atoms she flung upon the hearth, where a bright fire was blazing, not observing that, meanwhile, Julia had opened the window-casement.  A gust of wind darting into the room from outside caught up a fragment of the yet unconsumed paper and whirled it back from the flames to Julia’s feet.  She glanced at it indifferently, but the sight of some characters on it suddenly attracting her, she stooped and picked it up.