e was paralysed, helpless to move, rooted to the spot. In
one second more she must hear the slipping of the latch bolt, and he
would be behind her.

No, nothing came. Gradually she began to see herself in the glass again,
a faint ashy outline, then a transparent image, like the wraith of her
dead self, with staring eyes and dishevelled colourless hair. Her terror
was gone; she vaguely wondered where she had been, and looked curiously
at her reflected face.

"I think I am going mad," she said aloud, but quite quietly, as she
turned away from the mirror.

She lay down again on her back, her arms straightened by her sides, and
she looked at the ceiling. Since she must think of something, she would
try to think out what she was to say and do on the morrow. She would
telephone to Guido in the morning to come and see her, of course, and in
twenty minutes he would be sitting beside her on the little sofa in the
drawing-room. Then she would tell him everything, just as she had
confessed it all to herself that evening. She would throw herself upon
his mercy, she would say that she was irresistibly drawn to his friend;
but she would promise never to see Lamberti again, since that was to be
the punishment of her fault. There was clearly nothing else to do, if
she had any self-respect left, any modesty, any sense of decency. It
would be hard in the beginning, but afterwards it would grow easier.

Poor Guido! he would not understand at first, and he would look at her
as if he were dazed. She would give anything to save him the pain of it
all, but he must bear it, and in the end it would be much better. Of
course, the cowardly way would be to make her mother tell him.

She had not thought of her mother till then, but she had grown used to
directing her, and to feeling that she herself was the ruling spirit of
the two. Her mother would accept the decision, though she would protest
a good deal, and cry a little. That was to be regretted, but it did not
really matter since this was a question of absolute right or absolute
wrong, in which there was no choice.

She would not see Lamberti again, not even to say good-bye. It would be
wicked to see him, now that she knew the truth. But it was right to own
bravely that she loved him. If she hesitated in that, there would be no
sense in what she meant to do. She loved him with all her heart, with
everything in her, with every thought and every instinct, as she had
loved long ago in her v