ay so now?" asked the doctor. "The names of things do not
matter in the least. Let us say that you are haunted, if that describes
what troubles you. Very good. What haunts you?"

"A young girl," Lamberti answered, after a moment's pause.

"Do you mean that you see, or think you see, the apparition of a young
girl who is dead?"

"She is alive, but I have only met her once. That is the strange thing
about it, or, at least, the beginning of the strange thing. Of course it
is perfectly absurd, but when I first saw her, the only time we met, I
had the sensation of recognising some one I had not seen for many years.
As she is only just eighteen, that is impossible."

"Excuse me, my dear sir, nothing is impossible. Every one is
absent-minded sometimes. You may have seen the young lady in the street,
or at the theatre. You may have stared at her quite unconsciously while
you were thinking of something else, and her features may have so
impressed themselves upon your memory, without your knowing it, that you
actually recognised her when you met her in a drawing-room."

"I daresay," admitted Lamberti, indifferently. "But that is no reason
why I should dream of her every night."

"I am not sure. It might be a reason. Such things happen."

"And every night when I wake from the dream, I hear some one close the
door of my room softly, as if she were just going out. I always lock my
door at night."

"Perhaps it sometimes shakes a little in the frame."

"It began at home. But I have been stopping in the country nearly a
fortnight, and the same thing has happened every night."

"You dream it. One may get the habit of dreaming the same dream every
time one sleeps."

"It is not always the same dream, though the door is always closed
softly when she goes away. But there is something else. I was wrong in
saying that I only met the lady once. I should have said that I have
spoken with her only once. This is how it happened."

Lamberti told the doctor the story of his meeting Cecilia at the house
of the Vestals. The specialist listened attentively, for he was already
convinced that Lamberti was a man of solid reason and practical good
sense, probably the victim of a series of coincidences that had made a
strong impression on his mind. When Lamberti paused, there was a
moment's silence.

"What do you yourself think was the cause of the lady's fright?" asked
the doctor at last.

"I believe that she had dreamed the same dream,"