In agreeing to the dangerous scheme, Lamberti had yielded to an impulse founded upon his intuitive knowledge of women, and not at all upon his inborn love of anything in which there was risk. The danger was for Cecilia, not for himself, in any case; and it was real, for, if it should ever be known that she had gone to Guido's rooms, nothing but her marriage with him would silence the gossips. Society cannot be blamed for drawing a line somewhere, considering how very far back it sets the limit.

Lamberti, without reasoning about it, knew that no woman ever does well what she does not like doing. If he persisted in making Cecilia attempt to break gradually with Guido, she would soon make mistakes and spoil everything. That was his conviction. She felt, at present, that if she could see Guido face to face, she could persuade him to give her up; and the probability was that she would succeed, or else that she would be moved by real pity for him and thus become genuinely ready to follow Lamberti's original advice. The sensible course to follow was, therefore, to help her in the direction she had chosen.

Early in the morning Lamberti was at his friend's bedside. Guido was much better now, and there was no risk in taking him to his sitting room. Lamberti suggested this before saying anything else, and the doctor came soon afterwards and approved of it. By ten o'clock Guido was comfortably installed in a long cane chair, amongst his engravings and pictures, very pale and thin, but cheerful and expectant. As he had no fever, and was quite calm, Lamberti told him frankly that Cecilia had something to say to him which no one could say for her, and was coming herself. He was amazed and delighted at first, and then was angry with Lamberti for allowing her to come; but, as the latter explained in detail how her visit was to be managed, his fears subsided, and he looked at his watch with growing impatience. His man had been sitting up with him at night since his illness had begun, and was easily persuaded to go to bed for the day. The other servant, who cooked what Guido needed, had prepared everything for the day, and had gone out. He always came back a little after twelve o'clock. At twenty minutes to eleven Lamberti took the key of the door and went to watch for Cecilia's coming, and half an hour later he admitted her to the sitting room, shut the door after her, and left the two together. He went and sat down in the outer hall, in case any one should ring the bell, which had been muffled with a bit of soft leather while Guido was ill.

Cecilia stood still a moment, after the door was closed; behind her, and she lifted her veil to see her way, for there was not much light in the room. As she caught sight of Guido, a frank smile lighted up her face for an instant, and then died away in a look of genuine concern and anxiety. She had not realised how much he could change in so short a time, in not more than four or five days. She came forward quickly, took his hand, and bent over him, looking into his face. His eyes widened with pleasure and his thin fingers lifted hers to his lips.

"You have been very ill," she said, "very, very ill! I had no idea that it was so bad as this!"

"I am better," he answered gently. "How good of you! How endlessly good of you to come!"

"Nobody saw me," she said, by way of answer.

She smoothed the old pink damask cushion under his head, and instinctively looked to see if he had all he needed within reach, before she thought of sitting down in the chair Lamberti had placed ready for her.

"Tell me," he said, in a low and somewhat anxious voice, "you did not mean it? You were out of temper, or you were annoyed by something, or—I do not know! Something happened that made you write, and you had sent the letter before you knew what you were doing—"

He broke off, quite sure of her answer. He thought she turned pale, though the light was not strong and brought the green colour of the closed blinds into the room.

"Hush!" she exclaimed soothingly, and she sat down beside him, still holding his hand. "I have come expressly to talk to you about it all, because letters only make misunderstandings, and there must not be any more misunderstandings between us two."

"No, never again!" He looked up with love in his hollow eyes, not suspecting what she meant. "I have forgotten all that was in that letter, and I wish to forget it. You never wrote that you did not love me, nor that you loved another man. It is all gone, quite gone, and I shall never remember it again."

Cecilia sighed and gazed into his face sadly. He looked so ill and weak that she wondered how she could be cruel enough to tell him the truth, though she had risked her good name to get a chance of speaking plainly. It seemed like bringing a cup of cold water to the lips of a man dying of thirst, only to take it away again untasted and leave him to his fate. She pitied him with all her heart, but there was nothing in her compassion that at all resembled love. It was the purest and most friendly affection, of the sort that lasts a lifetime and can devote itself in almost any sacrifice; but it was all quite clear and comprehensible, without the smallest element of the inexplicable attraction that is deaf, and dumb, and, above all, blind, and which proceeds from the deep prime cause and mover of nature, and mates lions in the wilderness and birds in the air, and men and women among their fellows, two and two, from generation to generation.

"Guido," said Cecilia, after a long silence, "do you not think that two people can be very, very fond of each other all their lives, and trust each other, and like to be together as much as possible, without being married?"

She spoke quietly and steadily, trying to make her voice sound more gentle than ever before; but there was no possibility of mistaking her meaning. His thin hand started and shook under her soothing touch, and then drew itself away. The light went out of his eyes and the rings of shadow round them grew visibly darker as he turned his head painfully on the damask cushion.

"Is that what you have come to say?" he asked, in a groan.

Cecilia leaned back in her chair and folded her hands. She felt as if she had killed an unresisting, loving creature, as a sacrifice for her fault.

"God forgive me if I have done wrong," she said, speaking to herself. "I only mean to do right."

Guido moved his head on his cushion again, as if suffering unbearable pain, and a sort of harsh laugh answered her words.

"Your God will forgive you," he said bitterly, after a moment. "Man made God in his own image, and God must needs obey his creator. When you cannot forgive yourself, you set up an image and ask it to pardon you. I do not wonder."

The cruel words hurt her in more ways than one, and she drew her breath between her teeth as if she had struck unawares against something sharp and was repressing a cry of pain. Then there was silence for a long time.

"Why do you stay here?" Guido asked, in a low tone, not looking at her. "You cannot have anything more to say. You have done what you came to do. Let me be alone."

"Guido!"

She touched his shoulder gently as he lay turned from her, but he moved and pushed her away.

"It cannot give you pleasure to see me suffer," he said. "Please go away."

"How can I leave you like this?"

There was despair in her voice, and the sound of tears that would never come to her eyes. He did not answer. She would not go away without trying to appease him, and she made a strong effort to collect her thoughts.

"You are angry with me, of course," she began. "You despise me for not having known my own mind, but you cannot say anything that I have not said to myself. I ought to have known long ago. All I can say in self-defence now is that it is better to have told you the truth before we were married than to have been obliged to confess it afterwards, or else to have lied to you all my life if I could not find courage to speak. It is better, is it not? Oh, say that it is better!"

"It would have been much better if neither of us had ever been born," Guido answered.

"I only ask you to say that you would rather be suffering now than have had me tell you in a year that I was an unfaithful wife at heart. That is all. Will you not say it? It is all I ask."

"Why should you ask anything of me, even that? The only kindness you can show me now is to go away."

He would not look at her. His throat was parched, and he put out his hand to take the tumbler from the little table on the other side of his long chair. Instantly she rose and tried to help him, but he would not let her.

"I am not so weak as that," he said coldly. "My hand is steady enough, thank you."

She sighed and drew back. Perhaps it would be better to leave him, as he wished that she should, but his words recalled Lamberti's warning; his hand was steady, he said, and that meant that it was steady enough to take the pistol from the drawer in the little table and use it. He believed in nothing, in no future, in no retribution, in no God, and he was ill, lonely, and in despair through her fault. His friend knew him, and the danger was real. The conviction flashed through her brain that if she left him alone he would probably kill himself, and she fancied him lying there dead, on the red tiles. She fancied, too, Lamberti's face, when he should come to tell her what had happened, for he would surely come, and to the end of her life and his he would never forgive her.

She stood still, wavering and unstrung by her thoughts, looking steadily down at Guido's head.

"Since you will not go away," he said at last, "answer me one question. Tell me the name of the man who has come between us."

Cecilia bit her lip and turned her face from the light.

"Then it is true," Guido said, after a silence. "There is a man whom you really love, a man whom you would really marry and to whom you could really be faithful."

"Yes. It is true. Everything I wrote you is true."

"Who is he?"

She was silent again.

"Do you hope that I shall ever forgive you for what you have done to me?"

"Yes. I pray heaven that you may!"

"Leave heaven out of the question. You have turned my life into something like what you call hell. Do I know the man you love?"

"Yes," Cecilia answered, after a moment's hesitation.

"Do I often meet him? Have I met him often since you have loved him?"

She said nothing, but stood still with bent head and clasped hands.

"Why do you not answer me?" he asked sternly.

"You must never know his name," she said, in a low voice.

"Have I no right to know who has ruined my life?"

"I have. Blame me. Visit it on me."

He laughed, not harshly now, but gently and sarcastically.

"You women are fond of offering yourselves as expiatory victims for your own sins, for you know very well that we shall not hurt you! After all, you cannot help yourself if you have fallen in love with some one else. I suppose I ought to be sorry for you. I probably shall be, when I know who he is!"

He laughed again, already despising the man she had preferred in his stead. His words had cut her, but she said nothing, for she was in dread lest the slightest word should betray the truth.

"You say that I know him," Guido continued, his cheeks beginning to flush feverishly, "and you would not answer me when I asked you if I had often met him since you have loved him. That means that I have, of course. You were too honest to lie, and too much frightened to tell the truth. I meet him often. Then he is one of a score of men whom I know better than all the others. There are not many men whom I meet often. It cannot be very hard to find out which of them it is."

Cecilia turned her face away, resting one hand on the back of the chair, and a deep blush rose in her cheeks. But she spoke steadily.

"You can never find out," she said. "He does not love me. He does not guess that I love him. But I will not answer any more questions, for you must not know who he is."

"Why not? Do you think I shall quarrel with him and make him fight a duel with me?"

"Perhaps."

"That is absurd," Guido answered quietly. "I do not value my life much, I believe, but I have not the least inclination to risk it in such a ridiculous way. The man has injured me without knowing it. You have taken from me the one thing I treasured and you are keeping it for him; but he does not want it, he does not even know that it is his, he is not responsible for your caprices."

"Not caprice, Guido! Do not call it that!"

"I do. Forgive me for being frank. Say that I am ill, if you please, as an excuse for me. I call such things by their right name, caprices. If you are going to be subject to them all your life, you had better go into a convent before you throw away your good name."

"I have not deserved that!"

She turned upon him now, with flashing eyes. He had raised himself upon one elbow and was looking at her with cool contempt.

"You have deserved that and more," he answered, "and if you insist upon staying here you must hear what I choose to say. I advised you to go away, but you would not. I have no apology to make for telling you the truth, but you are free to go. Lamberti is in the hall and will see you to your carriage."

There was something royal in his anger and in his look now, which she could not help respecting, in spite of his words. She had thought that he would behave very differently; she had looked for some passionate outburst, perhaps for some unmanly weakness, excusable since he was so ill, and more in accordance with his outwardly gentle character. She had thought that because he had made his friend speak to her for him he lacked energy to speak for himself. But now that the moment had come, he showed himself as manly and determined as ever Lamberti could be, and she could not help respecting him for it. Doubtless Lamberti had always known what was in his friend's nature, below the indolent surface. Perhaps he was like his father, the old king. But Cecilia was proud, too.

"If I have stayed too long," she said, facing him, "it was because I came here at some risk to confess my fault, and hoped for your forgiveness. I shall always hope for it, as long as we both live, but I shall not ask for it again. I had thought that you would accept my devoted friendship instead of what I cannot give you and never gave you, though I believed that I did. But you will not take what I offer. We had better part on that rather than risk being enemies. You have already said one thing which you will regret and which I shall always remember. Good-bye."

She held out her hand frankly, and he took it and kept it a moment, while their eyes met, and he spoke more gently.

"I said too much. I am sorry. I shall forgive you when I do not love you any more. Good-bye."

He let her hand fall and looked away.

"Thank you," she said.

She left his side and went towards the door, her head a little bent. As she laid her hand upon the handle, and looked back at Guido once again, it turned in her fingers and was drawn quickly away from them. She started and turned her head to see who was there.

Lamberti stood before her, and immediately pushed her back into the room and shut the door, visibly disturbed.

"This way!" he said quickly, in an undertone.

He led her swiftly to another door, which he opened for her and closed as soon as she had passed.

"Wait for me there!" he said, as she went in.

"What is the matter?" asked Guido rather faintly, when he realised what his friend had done.

"Her mother is in the hall," Lamberti said. "Do not be startled, she knows nothing. She insists on seeing for herself how you are. She says her daughter begged her to come."

"Tell her I am too ill to see her, please, and thank her very much. It is all over, Lamberti, we have parted."

A dark flush rose in Lamberti's face.

"You must see the Countess," he said hurriedly. "I am sorry, but unless she comes here, her daughter cannot get out without being seen. We cannot leave her in your room. I will not do it, for your man may wake up and go there. There is no time to be lost either!"

"Bring the Countess in," said Guido, with an effort, and moving uneasily on his couch.

He felt that nothing was spared him. In the few seconds that elapsed, he tried to decide what he should say to the Countess, and how he could account for knowing that Cecilia had now definitely broken off the engagement. Before he had come to any conclusion the Countess was ushered in, rosy and smiling, but a little timid at finding herself in a young bachelor's quarters.

Meanwhile, Cecilia was in Guido's bedroom. An older woman might have suspected some ignoble treachery, but her perfect innocence protected her from all fear. Lamberti would not have brought her there in such a hurry unless there had been some absolute necessity for getting her out of sight at once. Undoubtedly some visitor had come who could not be turned away. Perhaps it was the doctor. Moreover, she was too much disturbed by what had taken place to pay much attention to what was, after all, a detail.

She looked about her and saw that there was another door by which Lamberti would presently enter to let her out. There was the great bed with the coverlet of old arras displaying the royal arms, and beside it stood a small table of mahogany inlaid with brass. It had tall and slender legs that ended below in little brass lions' paws, and it had a single drawer.

Without hesitation she went and opened it. Lamberti had been right. There was the revolver, a silver-mounted weapon with an ivory handle, much more for ornament than use, but quite effective enough for the purpose to which Guido might put it. Beside it lay a little pile of notes in their envelopes, and she involuntarily recognised her own handwriting. He had kept all she had written to him within his reach while he had been ill, and the thought pained her. The revolver was a very light one, made with only five chambers. She took it and examined it when she had shut the drawer again, and she saw that it was fully loaded. Old Fortiguerra had taught her to use firearms a little, and she knew how to load and unload them. She slipped the cartridges out quickly and tied them together in her handkerchief, and then dropped them into her parasol and the revolver after them.

She went to the tall mirror in the door of the wardrobe and began to arrange her veil, expecting Lamberti every moment. She had hardly finished when he entered and beckoned to her. She caught up her parasol by the middle so as to hold its contents safely, and in a few seconds she was outside the front door of the apartment. Lamberti drew a breath of relief.

"Take those!" she said quickly, producing the pistol and the cartridges. "He must not have them."

Lamberti took the weapon and put it into his pocket, and held the parasol, while she untied the handkerchief and gave him the contents. Both began to go downstairs.

"I had better tell you who came," Lamberti said, as they went. "You will be surprised. It was your mother."

"My mother!" Cecilia stopped short on the step she had reached. "I did not think she meant to come!"

She went on, and Lamberti kept by her side.

"You can seem surprised when she tells you," he said. "You have definitely broken your engagement, then? Guido had time to tell me so."

"Yes, I could not lie to him. It was very hard, but I am glad it is all over, though he is very angry now."

They reached the last landing before the court without meeting any one, and she paused again. He wondered what expression was on her face while she spoke, for he could scarcely see the outline of her features through the veil.

"Thank you again," she said. "We may not meet for a long time, for my mother and I shall go away at once, and I suppose we shall not come back next winter." She spoke rather bitterly now. "My reputation is damaged, I fancy, because I have refused to marry a man I do not love!"

"I will take care of your reputation," Lamberti answered, as if he were saying the most natural thing in the world.

"It is hardly your place to do that," Cecilia answered, much surprised.

"It may not be my right," Lamberti said, "as people consider those things. But it is my place, as Guido's friend and yours, as the only man alive who is devoted to you both."

"I am more grateful than I can tell you. But please let people say what they like of me, and do not take my defence. You, of all the men I know, must not."

"Why not I, of all men? I, of all men, will."

She was standing with her back to the wall on the landing, and he was facing her now. His face looked a little more set and determined than usual, and he was rather pale, and he stood sturdily still before her. She could see his face through her veil, though he could hardly distinguish hers. He felt for a moment as if he were talking to a sort of lay figure that represented her and could not answer him.

"I, of all men, will take care that no one says a word against you," he said, as she was silent.

"But why? Why you?"

"You have definitely given up all idea of marrying Guido? Absolutely? For ever? You are sure, in your own conscience, that he has no sort of claim on you left, and that he knows it?"

"Yes, yes! But—"

"Then," he said, not heeding her, "as you and I may not meet again for a long time, and as it cannot do you the least harm to know it, and as you will have no right to feel that I shall be lacking in respect to you, if I say it, I am going to give myself the satisfaction of telling you something I have taken great pains to hide since we first met."

"What is it?" asked Cecilia, nervously.

"It is a very simple matter, and one that will not interest you much."

He paused one moment, and fixed his eyes on the brown veil, where he knew that hers were.

"I love you."

Cecilia started violently, and put out one hand against the wall behind her.

"Do not be frightened, Contessina," he said gently. "Many men will say that to you before you are old. But none of them will mean it more truly than I. Shall we go? Your mother may not stay long with Guido."

He moved, expecting her to go on, but she leaned against the wall where she stood, and she stared at his face through her veil. For an instant she thought she was going to faint, for her heart stopped beating and the blood left her head. She did not know whether it was happiness, or surprise, or fear that paralysed her, when his simple words revealed the vastness of the mistake in which she had lived, and the immensity of joy she had missed by so little. She pressed her hand flat against the wall beside her, sure that if she moved it she must fall.

"Have I offended you, Signorina?" Lamberti asked, and the low tones shook a little.

She could not speak yet, but his voice seemed to steady her, and her heart beat again. As if she were making a great effort her hand slowly left the wall, and she stretched it out towards him, silently asking for his. He did not understand, but he took it and held it quietly, coming a little nearer to her.

"You have forgiven me," he said. "Thank you. You are kind. Good-bye."

But then her fingers closed on his with almost frantic pressure.

"No, no!" she cried. "Not yet! One moment more!"

Still he did not understand, but he felt the blood rising and singing in his heart like the tide when it is almost high. A strange expectation filled him, as of a great change in his whole being that must come in the most fearful pain, or else in a happiness almost unbearable, something swelling, bursting, overwhelming, and enormous beyond imagination.

She did not know that she was drawing him nearer to her, she would have blushed scarlet at the thought; he did not know that his feet moved, that he was quite close to her, that she was clutching his hand and pressing it upon her own heart. They did not see what they were doing. They were standing together by a marble pillar in the Vestals' House. They were out in the firmament beyond worlds, not seeing, not hearing, not touching, but knowing and one in knowledge.

The veil touched his cheek and lightly pressed against it. It was the Vestal's veil. He had felt it in dreams, between his face and hers. Then the world broke into visible light, and he heard her whisper in his ear.

"That was my secret. You know it now."

A distant footfall echoed from far up the stone staircase. Once more as she heard it she pressed his hand to her heart with all her might, and he, with his left round her neck, drew her veiled face against his and held it there an instant in simple pressure, not trying to kiss her.

Then those two separated and went down the remaining steps in silence, side by side, and very demurely, as if nothing had happened. The Countess's brougham was in the courtyard, and the porter, just going into his lodge under the archway, touched his big-visored cap to Lamberti and glanced at Cecilia carelessly as they went out. Petersen was sitting in an open cab in the blazing sun, under a large white parasol lined with green cotton, and her mistress was seated beside her before she had time to rise. Cecilia had quickly turned up her veil over the brim of her hat as soon as she had passed the porter's lodge, for he knew her face and she did not wish him to see her go out with Lamberti.

"Thank you," she said in a matter-of-fact tone as Lamberti stood hat in hand in the sun by the step of the cab. "Palazzo Massimo," she called out to the coach-man.

She nodded to Lamberti indifferently, and the cab drove quickly away to the right, rattling over the white paving-stones of the Piazza Farnese in the direction of San Carlo a Catinari.

"Did you see your mother?" Petersen asked. "She stopped the carriage and called me when she saw me, and she said she was going to ask after Signor d'Este. I said you had gone up to the embassy."

"No," Cecilia answered, "I did not see her. We shall be at home before she is."

She did not speak again on the way. Petersen was too near-sighted and unsuspicious to see that she surreptitiously loosened the brown veil from her hat, got it down beside her on the other side, and rolled it up into a ball with one hand. Somehow, when she reached her own door, it was inside the parasol, just where the revolver had been half an hour earlier.

Lamberti put on his straw hat and glanced indifferently at the departing cab as he turned away, quite sure that Cecilia would not look round. He went back into the palace, feeling for a cigar in his outer breast pocket. His hands felt numb with cold under the scorching sun, and he knew that he was taking pains to look indifferent and to move as if nothing extraordinary had happened to him; for in a few minutes he would be face to face with Guido d'Este and the Countess Fortiguerra. He lit his cigar under the archway, and blew a cloud of smoke before him as he turned into the staircase; but on the first landing he stopped, just where he had stood with Cecilia. He paused, his cigar between his teeth, his legs a little apart as if he were on deck in a sea-way, and his hands behind him. He looked curiously at the wall where she had leaned against it, and he smoked vigorously. At last he took out a small pocket knife and with the point of the blade scratched a little cross on the hard surface, looked at it, touched it again and was satisfied, returned the knife to his pocket, and went quietly upstairs. Most seafaring men do absurdly sentimental things sometimes. Lamberti's expression had neither softened nor changed while he was scratching the mark, and when he went on his way he looked precisely as he did when he was going up the steps of the Ministry to attend a meeting of the Commission. He had good nerves, as he had told the specialist whom he had consulted in the spring.

But he would have given much not to meet Guido for a day or two, though he did not in the least mind meeting the Countess. Cecilia could keep a secret as well as he himself, almost too well, and there was not the slightest danger that her mother should guess the truth from the behaviour of either of them, even when together. Nor would Guido guess it for that matter; that was not what Lamberti was thinking of just then.

He felt that chance, or fate, had made him the instrument of a sort of betrayal for which he was not responsible, and as he had never been in such a position in his life, even by accident, it was almost as bad at first as if he had intentionally taken Cecilia from his friend. He had always been instinctively sure that she would love him some day, but when he had at last spoken he had really not had the least idea that she already loved him. He had acted on an impulse as soon as he was quite sure that she would never marry Guido; perhaps, if he could have analysed his feelings, as Guido could have done, he would have found that he really meant to shock her a little, or frighten her by the point-blank statement that he loved her, in the hope of widening the distance which he supposed to exist between them, and thereby making it much more improbable that she should ever care for him.

Even now he did not see how he could ever marry her and remain Guido's friend. He was far too sensible to tell Guido the truth and appeal to his generosity, for the best man living is not inclined to be generous when he has just been jilted, least of all to the man to whom he owes his discomfiture. In the course of time Guido might grow more indifferent. That was the most that could be hoped. Nevertheless, from the instant in which Lamberti had realised the truth, coming back to his senses out of a whirlwind of delight, he had known that he meant to have the woman he loved for himself, since she loved him already, and that he would count nothing that chanced to stand in his way, neither his friend, nor his career, nor his own family, nor neck nor life, either, if any such improbable risk should present itself. He was very glad that he had waited till he was quite sure that she was free, for he knew very well that if the moment had come too soon he should have felt the same reckless desire to win her, though he would have exiled himself to a desert island in the Pacific Ocean rather than yield to it.

And more than that. He, who had a rough and strong belief in God, in an ever living soul within him, and in everlasting happiness and suffering hereafter, he, who called suicide the most dastardly and execrable crime against self that it lies in the power of a believing man to commit, would have shot himself without hesitation rather than steal the love of his only friend's wedded wife, content to give his body to instant destruction, and his soul to eternal hell—if that were the only way not to be a traitor. God might forgive him or not; salvation or damnation would matter little compared with escaping such a monstrous evil.

He did not think these things. They were instinctive with him and sure as fate, like all the impulses of violent temperaments; just as certain as that if a man should give him the lie he would have struck him in the face before he had realised that he had even raised his hand. Guido d'Este, as brave in a different way, but hating any violent action, would never strike a man at all if he could possibly help it, though he would probably not miss him at the first shot the next morning.

A quarter of an hour had not elapsed since Lamberti had left the Countess and Guido together when he let himself in again with his latch-key. He went at once to the bedroom, walking slowly and scrutinising the floor as he went along. He had heard of tragedies brought about by a hairpin, a glove, or a pocket handkerchief, dropped or forgotten in places where they ought not to be. He looked everywhere in the passage and in Guido's room, but Cecilia had not dropped anything. Then he examined his beard in the glass, with an absurd exaggeration of caution. Her loose brown veil had touched his cheek, a single silk thread of it clinging to his beard might tell a tale. He was a man who had more than once lived among savages and knew how slight a trace might lead to a broad trail. Then he got a chair and set it against the side of the tall wardrobe. Standing on it he got hold of the cornice with his hands, drew himself up till he could see over it, remained suspended by one hand and, with the other, laid the revolver and the cartridges on the top. Guido would never find them there.

The Countess's unnecessary shyness had disappeared as soon as she saw how ill Guido looked. His head was aching terribly now, and he had a little fever again, but he raised himself as well as he could to greet her, and smiled courteously as she held out her hand.

"This is very kind of you, my dear lady," he managed to say, but his own voice sounded far off.

"I was really so anxious about you!" the Countess said, with a little laugh. "And—and about it all, you know. Now tell me how you really are!"

Guido said that he had felt better in the morning, but now had a bad headache. She sympathised with him and suggested bathing his temples with Eau de Cologne, which seemed simple. She always did it herself when she had a headache, she said. The best was the Forty-Seven Eleven kind. But of course he knew that.

He felt that he should probably go mad if she stayed five minutes longer, but his courteous manner did not change, though her face seemed to be jumping up and down at every throb he felt in his head. She was very kind, he repeated. He had some Eau de Cologne of that very sort. He never used any other. This sounded in his own ears so absurdly like the advertisements of patent soap that he smiled in his pain.

Yes, she repeated, it was quite the best; and she seemed a little embarrassed, as if she wanted to say something else but could not make up her mind to speak. Could she do anything to make him more comfortable? She could go away, but he could not tell her so. He thanked her. Lamberti and his man had taken most excellent care of him. Why did he not have a nurse? There were the Sisters of Charity, and the French sisters who wore dark blue and were very good; she could not remember the name of the order, but she knew where they lived. Should she send him one? He thanked her again, and the room turned itself upside down before his eyes and then whirled back again at the next throb. Still he tried to smile.

She coughed a little and looked at her perfectly fitting gloves, wishing that he would ask after Cecilia. If he had been suffering less he would have known that he was expected to do so, but it was all he could do just then to keep his face from twitching.

Then she suddenly said that she had something on her mind to say to him, but that, of course, as he was so very ill, she would not say it now, but as soon as he was quite well they would have a long talk together.

Guido was a man more nervous than sanguine, and probably more phlegmatic than either, and his nervous strength asserted itself now, just when he began to believe that he was on the verge of delirium. He felt suddenly much quieter and the pain in his head diminished, or he noticed it less. He said that he was quite able to talk now, and wished to know at once what she had to say to him.

She needed no second invitation to pour out her heart about Cecilia, and in a long string of involved and often disjointed sentences she told him just what she felt. Cecilia had done her best to love him, after having really believed that she did love him, but it was of no use, and it was much better that Guido should know the truth now, than find it out by degrees. Cecilia was dreadfully sorry to have made such a mistake, and both Cecilia and she herself would always be the best friends he had in the world; but the engagement had better be broken off at once, and of course, as it would injure Cecilia if everything were known, it would be very generous of him to let it be thought that it had been broken by mutual agreement, and without any quarrel. She stopped at last, rather frightened at having said so much, but quite sure that she had done right, and believing that she knew the whole truth and had told it all. She waited for his answer in some trepidation.

"My dear lady," he said at last, "I am very glad you have been so frank. Ever since your daughter wrote me that letter I have felt that it must end in this way. As she does not wish to marry me, I quite agree that our engagement should end at once, so that the agreement is really mutual and friendly, and I shall say so."

"How good you are!" cried the Countess, delighted.

"There is only one thing I ask of you," Guido said, after pressing his right hand upon his forehead in an attempt to stop the throbbing that now began again. "I do not think I am asking too much, considering what has happened, and I promise not to make any use of what you tell me."

"You have a right to ask us anything," the Countess answered, contritely.

"Who is the man that has taken my place?"

The Countess stared at him blankly a moment, and her mouth opened a little.

"What man?" she asked, evidently not understanding him.

"I naturally supposed that your daughter felt a strong inclination for some one else," Guido said.

"Oh dear, no!" cried the Countess. "You are quite mistaken!"

"I beg your pardon, then. Pray forget what I said."

He saw that she was speaking the truth, as far as she knew it, and he had long ago discovered that she was quite unable to conceal anything not of the most vital importance. She repeated her assurance several times, and then began to review the whole situation, till Guido was in torment again.

At last the door opened and Lamberti entered. He saw at a glance how Guido was suffering, and came to his side.

"I am afraid he is not so well to-day," he said. "He looks very tired. If he could sleep more, he would get well sooner."

The Countess rose at once, and became repentant for having stayed too long.

"I could not help telling him everything," she explained, looking at Lamberti. "And as for Cecilia being in love with some one else," she added, looking down into Guido's face and taking his hand, "you must put that out of your head at once! As if I should not know it! It is perfectly absurd!"

Lamberti stared fixedly at the top of her hat while she bent down.

"Of course," Guido said, summoning his strength to bid her good-bye courteously, and to show some gratitude for her visit. "I am sorry I spoke of it. Thank you very much for coming to see me, and for being so frank."

In a sense he was glad she had come, for her coming had solved the difficulty in which he had been placed. He sank back exhausted and suffering as she left the room, and was hardly aware that Lamberti came back soon afterwards and sat down beside him. Before long his friend carried him back to his bed, for he seemed unable to walk.

Lamberti stayed with him till he fell asleep under the influence of a soporific medicine, and then called the man-servant. He told him he had taken the revolver from the drawer, because his master was not to be married after all, and might do something foolish, and ought to be watched continually, and he said that he would come back and stay through the night. The man had been in his own service, and could be trusted now that he had slept.

Lamberti left the Palazzo Farnese and walked slowly homeward in the white glare, smoking steadily all the way, and looking straight before him.