eing to it; it was the greatest sin she had
ever committed, and with a despairing impulse she sank upon her knees
and poured out her heart in full confession of her fault.

Never in her life had she confessed as she did now, with such a
whole-hearted hatred of her own weakness, such willingness to bear all
blame, such earnest desire for forgiveness, such hope for divine
guidance in making reparation. She would not plead ignorance, nor even
any omission to examine herself, as an excuse for what she had done. It
was all her fault, and her eyes had been open from the first, and she
was about to see the whole life of a good friend ruined through her
miserable weakness.

As she went over it all, burying her face in her hands, the conviction
that she loved Lamberti grew with amazing quickness to the certainty of
a fact long known. This was her crime, that she had been too proud to
own that she had loved him at first sight; her punishment should be
never to see him again. She would abase herself before Guido and confess
everything to him in the very words she was whispering now, and she
would implore his forgiveness. Then, since Lamberti could not leave
Rome, she and her mother would go away on a long journey, to Russia,
perhaps, or to America, or China, and they would never come back. It
must be easy enough to avoid one particular person in the whole world.

This she would do, but she would not deny that she loved him. All her
fault had lain in trying to deny it in spite of what she felt when he
was near her, and it must be still more wrong to force the fact out of
sight now that it had brought her into such great trouble. There was
nothing to be done but to acknowledge it, though it was shame and
humiliation to do so. It stared her in the face, now that she had
courage to own the truth, and a voice called out that she had lied to
herself, to her mother, and to Guido for many weeks, and persistently,
rather than admit that she could fall so low. But even then, in the
midst of her self-abasement, another voice answered that it was no shame
to love a good and true man, and that Lamberto Lamberti was both.

CHAPTER XVIII

That night seemed the longest in all Cecilia's young life. She was worn
out with fatigue, and could have slept ten hours, yet she dreaded to
fall asleep lest she should dream of Lamberti, and speak to him in her
dream as she meant never to speak to any man now. Just whe