the wall behind
her.

"Do not be frightened, Contessina," he said gently. "Many men will say
that to you before you are old. But none of them will mean it more truly
than I. Shall we go? Your mother may not stay long with Guido."

He moved, expecting her to go on, but she leaned against the wall where
she stood, and she stared at his face through her veil. For an instant
she thought she was going to faint, for her heart stopped beating and
the blood left her head. She did not know whether it was happiness, or
surprise, or fear that paralysed her, when his simple words revealed the
vastness of the mistake in which she had lived, and the immensity of joy
she had missed by so little. She pressed her hand flat against the wall
beside her, sure that if she moved it she must fall.

"Have I offended you, Signorina?" Lamberti asked, and the low tones
shook a little.

She could not speak yet, but his voice seemed to steady her, and her
heart beat again. As if she were making a great effort her hand slowly
left the wall, and she stretched it out towards him, silently asking for
his. He did not understand, but he took it and held it quietly, coming a
little nearer to her.

"You have forgiven me," he said. "Thank you. You are kind. Good-bye."

But then her fingers closed on his with almost frantic pressure.

"No, no!" she cried. "Not yet! One moment more!"

Still he did not understand, but he felt the blood rising and singing in
his heart like the tide when it is almost high. A strange expectation
filled him, as of a great change in his whole being that must come in
the most fearful pain, or else in a happiness almost unbearable,
something swelling, bursting, overwhelming, and enormous beyond
imagination.

She did not know that she was drawing him nearer to her, she would have
blushed scarlet at the thought; he did not know that his feet moved,
that he was quite close to her, that she was clutching his hand and
pressing it upon her own heart. They did not see what they were doing.
They were standing together by a marble pillar in the Vestals' House.
They were out in the firmament beyond worlds, not seeing, not hearing,
not touching, but knowing and one in knowledge.

The veil touched his cheek and lightly pressed against it. It was the
Vestal's veil. He had felt it in dreams, between his face and hers. Then
the world broke into visible light, and he heard her whisper in his ear.

"That was my secret. You know it now."