waited for the turn of
the illness, or for its sudden end, and the days dragged on painfully.
Lamberti was as lean as a man trained for a race, and the cords stood
out on his throat when he spoke, but nothing seemed to tire him. The
good Countess lost her fresh colour and grew listless, but she
complained only of the heat and the solitude of Rome in summer, and if
she felt any impatience she never showed it. Cecilia was as slender and
pale as one of the lilies of the Annunciation, but her eyes were full of
light. In the early morning she often used to go with her maid to the
distant church of Santa Croce, and late in the afternoons she went for
long drives with her mother in the Campagna. Twice Lamberti came to
luncheon, and the three were silent and subdued when they were together.

Then the news came that Princess Anatolie had died suddenly at her place
in Styria, and one of the secretaries of the Austrian embassy, who was
obliged to stay in town, came to the Palazzo Massimo the same afternoon
and told the Countess some details of the old lady's death. There was
certainly something mysterious about it, but no one regretted her
translation to a better world, though it put a number of high and mighty
persons into mourning for a little while.

She died in the drawing-room after dinner, almost with her coffee cup in
her hand. It was the heart, of course, said the young secretary. Two or
three of her relations were staying in the house, and one of them was
the man who had been at her dinner-party given for the engaged couple,
and who resembled Guido but was older. The Countess remembered his name
very well. It had leaked out that he was exceedingly angry at the
article in the _Figaro_ and had said one or two sharp things to the
Princess, when Monsieur Leroy had come in unexpectedly, though the
Princess had sent him away for a few days. No one knew exactly what
followed, but Monsieur Leroy was an insolent person and the Princess's
cousin was not patient of impertinence nor of anything like an attack on
Guido d'Este. It was said that Monsieur Leroy had left the room hastily
and that the other had followed him at once, in a very bad temper, and
that the Princess, who thought Monsieur Leroy was going to be badly
hurt, if not killed, had died of fright, without uttering a word or a
cry. She had always been unaccountably attached to Monsieur Leroy. The
secretary glanced at Cecilia, asked for another cup of tea, and
discreetly c