ut it is not easy to work out the answer
which Lucilla ought now to make to Tomaso, and I shall have to take time
for its consideration."

"I shouldn't think it would be easy," said she, "but I hoped you had it
already in your mind."

"Then you are interested in it?" I asked.

"Of course I am," she answered,--"who wouldn't be? And just at this
point, too, when everything depends on what she says; but it is quite
right for you to be very careful about what you make her say," and she
gathered her sheets together to lay them away.

Now I wanted to say something to her. I stopped work for that purpose,
but I did not know what to say. An apology for my conduct of the day
before would not be exactly in order, and an explanation of it would be
exceedingly difficult. I walked up and down my study, and she continued
to arrange her pages. When she had put them into a compact and very neat
little pile, she opened the table drawer, placed them in it, examined
some other contents of the drawer, and finally closed it, and sat
looking out of the window. After some minutes of this silent
observation, she half turned toward me, and without entirely removing
her gaze from the apple-tree outside, she asked:--

"Do you still want to know my name?"

"Indeed I do!" I exclaimed, stepping quickly to the grating.

"Well, then," she said, "it is Sylvia."

At this moment we heard the footsteps of Sister Sarah in the hall, at
least two minutes before the usual time.

When they had gone, I stood by my study table, my arms folded and my
eyes fixed upon the floor.

"Horace Vanderley," I said to myself, "you are in love;" and to this
frank and explicit statement I answered, quite as frankly, "That is
certainly true; there can be no mistake about it."

XXI.

LUCILLA AND I.

A Saturday afternoon, evening, and night, the whole of a Sunday and its
night, with some hours of a Monday morning, intervened between the
moment at which I had acknowledged to myself my feelings toward my
secretary and the moment at which I might expect to see her again, and
nearly the whole of this time was occupied by me in endeavoring to
determine what should be my next step. To stand still in my present
position was absolutely impossible: I must go forward or backward. To go
backward was a simple thing enough; it was like turning round and
jumping down a precipice; it made me shudder. To go forward was like
climbing a precipice with beetling crags and p