ring another word. _She_ could not speak, _he_ could
not speak; they stood together on a precipice where only by silence
could they hold their heads.

"Let me go home," she said in a breaking voice, and with downcast head
and trembling limbs she stepped to the door.

IX

Reaching the door, she stopped, as if reluctant to leave, and said in a
voice still soft, but coming more from within:

"I wished to meet you face to face, but now that I have met you, you are
not the man I thought you were."

"Nor you," he said, "the woman I pictured you."

A light came into her eyes at that, and she looked up and said:

"Then you had never seen me before?"

And he answered after a moment:

"I had never seen Donna Roma Volonna until to-day."

"Forgive me for coming to you," she said.

"I thank you for doing so," he replied, "and if I have sinned against
you, from this hour onward I am your friend and champion. Let me try to
right the wrong I have done you. What I said was the result of a
mistake--let me ask your forgiveness."

"You mean publicly?"

"Yes!"

"You are very good, very brave," she said; "but no, I will not ask you
to do that."

"Ah! I understand. I know it is impossible to overtake a lie. Once
started it goes on and on, like a stone rolling down-hill, and even the
man who started can never stop it. Tell me what better I can do--tell
me, tell me."

Her face was still down, but it had now a new expression of joy.

"There is one thing you can do, but it is difficult."

"No matter! Tell me what it is."

[Illustration: THEY STOOD TOGETHER ON A PRECIPICE.]

"I thought when I came here ... but it is no matter."

"Tell me, I beg of you."

He was trying to look into her face again, and she was eluding his gaze
as before, but now for another, a sweeter reason.

"I thought if--if you would come to my house when my friends are there,
your presence as my guest, in the midst of those in whose eyes you have
injured me, might be sufficient of itself to wipe out everything.
But...."

"Is that _all_?" he said.

"Then you are not afraid?"

"Afraid?"

For one moment they looked at each other, and their eyes were shining.

"I have thought of something else," she said.

"What is it?"

"You have heard that I am a sculptor. I am making a fountain for the
Municipality, and if I might carve your face into it...."

"It would be coals of fire on my head."

"You would need to