turn out to be
one."

"I daresay you are right. Is there any other way of curing such habits
of the mind?"

"I could hypnotise you and stop your dreaming by suggestion."

"Nobody could make me sleep against my will." Lamberti laughed at the
mere idea.

"No," answered the doctor, "but it would not be against your will, if
you submitted to it as a cure. However, try the simpler plan first, and
come and see me in a day or two. You seem to hesitate. Perhaps you have
some reason for not wishing to make the nearer acquaintance of the lady.
That is your affair, but one more interview of a few minutes will not
make much difference, as your health is at stake. You are under a mental
strain altogether out of proportion with the cause that produces it, and
the longer you allow it to last the stronger the reaction will be, when
it comes."

"I have no good reason for not knowing her better," Lamberti said after
a moment's thought, for he was convinced against his previous
determination. "I will take your advice, and then I will come and see
you again."

He took his leave and went out into the bright morning air. It was a
relief to feel that he had been brought to a determination at last, and
he knew that it was a sensible one, from any ordinary point of view, and
that his one great objection to acting upon it had no logical value.

But the objection subsisted, though he had made up his mind to override
it. It was out of the question that he could really be in love with
Cecilia Palladio, who was probably quite unlike what she seemed to be in
his dreams. He had fallen in love with a fancy, a shadow, an unreal
image that haunted him as soon as he closed his eyes; but when he was
wide awake and busy with life the girl was nothing to him but a mere
acquaintance. His pulse would not beat as fast when he met her that very
afternoon as it had done just now, in the doctor's study, when he had
been thinking of the vision.

Besides, what Guido had said was quite true. He could not possibly
continue not to know Guido's future wife; and as there was no danger of
his falling in love with her when his eyes were open, he really could
not see why he should be so anxious to avoid her. So the matter was
settled. He took a long walk, far out of Porta San Giovanni, and turned
to the right by the road that leads through the fields to the tomb of
Cecilia Metella.

As he passed the great round monument, swinging along steadily, its name
natur