that he is in communication with
spirits. Don Nicola said quite gravely that the devil was in all
spiritualism."

"Of course he is," assented the Countess. "I have heard of dreadful
things happening to people who made tables turn. They go mad, and all
sorts of things."

"All sorts of things," in the Countess's mind represented everything she
could not remember or would not take the trouble to say. The expression
did not always stand grammatically in the sentence, but that was of no
importance whatever compared with the convenience of using it in any
language she chanced to be speaking. She belonged to a generation in
which a woman was considered to have finished her education when she had
learned to play the piano and had forgotten arithmetic, and she had now
forgotten both, which did not prevent her from being generally liked,
while some people thought her amusing.

Just at that moment she seemed hopelessly frivolous to Cecilia, who was
in the greatest distress for Guido, and left her to take refuge in
solitude. She could remember no day in her life on which so much had
happened to change it, and she felt that she must be alone at last.

In her old way she sat down to let herself dream with open eyes in the
darkened room. There could be no harm in it now, and the old longing
came upon her as if she had never tried to resist it. She sat facing the
shadows and concentrated all her thoughts on one point with a steady
effort, sure that presently she should be thinking of nothing and
waiting for the vision to appear, and for the dream-man she had loved so
long. He might take her into his arms now, and she would not resist him;
she would let his lips meet hers, and for one endless instant she would
be lifted up in strong and strange delight, as when to-day her veiled
cheek had pressed against his for a second--or an hour--she did not
know. He might kiss her in dreams now, for in real life he loved her as
she loved him, and some day, far off no doubt, when poor Guido was well
and strong again, and Lamberti had silenced all the calumnies invented
against him, then it would all surely come true indeed.

But now she waited long, patiently, in the certainty that she could go
back to the marble court and stand by the pillar in the morning light
till she felt him coming up behind her. Yet she saw nothing, and her
eyes grew weary of watching the shadows, and closed themselves, for it
was afternoon, and very hot, and she was ti