r were standing against the walls and in the corners.

She felt as if she had been shut out by an act of tyranny, just as when
she and her five companions had sadly left the House, obedient to the
Christian Emperor's decree, long ago. It had always been her room ever
since she had first dreamt. The beautiful narrow bronze bedstead used to
stand on the left, the carved oak wardrobe inlaid with ivory was on the
right, the marble table was just under the window, covered with objects
she needed for her toilet, exquisite things of chiselled silver and of
polished ivory. The chair, rounded at the back and with cushioned seat,
like Agrippina's, was near it. In winter, the large bronze brazier of
coals, changed twice daily, was always placed in the middle of the room.
The walls were wainscoted with Asian marble, and painted above that with
portraits in fresco of great and ancient Vestals who had been holier
than the rest, each in her snowy robes, with the white veil drawn up and
backwards over her head, and brought forward again over the shoulder,
and each holding some sacred vessel or instrument in her one uncovered
hand. There were stories about each which the Virgo Maxima used to read
to the younger ones from a great rolled manuscript, that was kept in an
ancient bronze box, or which she sometimes told in the moonlight on
summer nights when the maidens sat together in the court.

She closed her eyes, her forehead resting against the iron bars, and she
saw it all as it had been; she looked again and the desolation hurt her
and shocked her as when in a wilderness an explorer comes suddenly upon
the bleached bones of one who had gone before him and had been his
friend. She sighed and turned away.

The dream was better than the reality, in that and in many other ways.
She was overcome by the sense of utter failure, as she sat down on the
steps below the raised floor, lonely and forlorn.

It was all a comedy now, a miserable petty play to hide a great truth
from herself and others. She had begun her part already, writing her
wretched little notes to poor Guido. She knew that, ill as he was, the
words that seemed lies to her were ten times true to him, and that he
exaggerated every enquiry after his condition and each expression of
hope for his recovery into signs of loving solicitude, that he had
already forgiven what he thought her caprice, and was looking forward to
his marriage as more certain than ever, in spite of her mess