secret of having known each other. But
perhaps, by some accident, they had become intimate without the
knowledge of the Countess, so that Cecilia was now very much afraid lest
her mother should find it out.

Guido's reflections stopped there. At any other time he would have
laughed at their absurdity, and now he resented it. The plain fact
stared him in the face, the fact he had known all along and had
forgotten--Lamberti could not possibly have met Cecilia since she had
been a mere child, because Guido could account for all his friend's
movements during the last five years. Five years ago, Cecilia had been
thirteen.

He was glad that he had torn up his letter to Lamberti, and that he had
not even begun the one to Cecilia, after sitting half an hour with his
pen in his hand. Yes, he went over those five years, and then took from
a drawer the last five of the little pocket diaries he always carried.
There was a small space for each day of the year, and he never failed to
note at least the name of the place in which he was, while travelling.
He also recorded Lamberti's coming and going, the names of the ships to
which he was ordered, and the dates of any notable facts in his life. It
is tolerably easy to record the exact movements of a sailor in active
service who is only at home on very short leave once in a year or two.
Guido turned over the pages carefully and set down on a slip of paper
what he found. In five years Lamberti's leave had not amounted to eight
months in all, and Guido could account for every day of it, for they had
spent all of it either in Rome or in travelling together. He laid the
little diaries in the drawer again, and leaned back in his chair with a
deep sigh of satisfaction.

He was too generous not to wish to find his friend at once and
acknowledge frankly that he had been wrong. He telephoned to ask whether
Lamberti had come back from the Villa Madama. Yes, he had come back, but
he had gone out again. No one knew where he was. He had said that he
should not dine at home. That was all. If he returned before half-past
ten o'clock d'Este should be informed.

Guido dined alone and waited, but no message came during the evening. At
half-past ten he wrote a few words on a correspondence card, told his
man to send the note to Lamberti early in the morning, and went to bed,
convinced that everything would explain itself satisfactorily before
long. As soon as he was positively sure that Lamberti and C