n she was
losing consciousness, she roused herself as one does who fears a
horrible nightmare that comes back again and again. She was afraid to be
alone in the dark with her fear, and she had left one light burning
where it could not shine into her eyes. If she did not sleep before
daylight, she might not dream after that. When she shut her eyes she saw
Lamberti looking at her.

She rose and bathed her face and temples. The water was not very cold in
July, after standing in the room half the night, but it cooled her brows
a little and she lay down again, and tried to repeat things she knew by
heart. She knew all the fourteenth canto of the "Paradise," for
instance, and said it over, and tried to see what it described as she
had seen it all in the church of Santa Croce. While she whispered the
words she looked forward to those she loved best, the ones that bade her
rise and get the victory, and she went on with intense anticipation.
Before she reached them she lost herself, and they formed themselves on
her lips unnoticed as she saw Lamberti's face again.

It was unbearable. She sat up on the edge of the bed and stared into the
shadow, and presently she grasped her left arm above the elbow and tried
to force her nails into the flesh, with the instinctive idea that pain
must bring peace after it. But she could hardly hurt herself at all in
that way. Again she rose, and she went and looked at her reflection in
the tall glass.

There was not much light in the room, but she could see that she was
very pale, and that her eyes had a strange look in them, more like
Lamberti's than her own. It was a possession; she found him everywhere.
Behind her image in the glass she saw the door of the room, the only one
there was, which she had so often heard closed softly just as her dream
ended. She shivered, for the Palazzo Massimo is a ghostly place at
night, and her nerves were unstrung by what she had suffered. She knew
that she was dizzy for a moment, and the glass grew misty and then
clear, and reflected nothing to her sight, nothing but the whole door,
as if she herself were not standing there, all in white, between it and
the mirror.

It was going to open, she felt sure. It was going to open softly, though
she knew it was locked, and then some one would enter. She shivered
again, and felt her loose hair rising on her head, as if lifted by a
cool breeze. It was a moment of agony, and her teeth chattered. He was
coming, and sh