, and knew at once that the opportunity must
not be lost.

It was the hardest moment in Lamberti's life. It had been far easier to
hide what he felt, so long as he had not guessed that Cecilia loved him,
than it was to speak out now; it had cost him much less to be steadfast
in his silence with her while Guido's illness lasted. To make Guido
understand all, it would be necessary to tell all from the beginning,
even to explaining that what he had taken for mutual aversion at first,
had been an attraction so irresistible that it had frightened Cecilia
and had made Lamberti compare it with a possession of the devil and a
haunting spirit.

The two men were sitting on the brick steps of the miniature Roman
theatre close to the oak which is still called Tasso's, a few yards from
the new road that leads over the Janiculum through what was once the
Villa Corsini. It was shady there, and Rome lay at their feet in the
still afternoon. The waiting carriage was out of sight, and there was no
sound but the rustling of leaves stirred by the summer breeze. It was
nearly the middle of August.

"They are still in Rome," Lamberti said, after a moment's pause, during
which he had decided to speak at last.

"Are they?" asked Guido, coldly.

"Yes. Neither the Countess nor her daughter would go away till you were
well."

"I am well now."

He was painfully thin and his eyes were hollow. The doctor had ordered
mountain air and he was going to stay with one of his relatives in the
Austrian Tyrol as soon as he could bear the journey without too much
fatigue.

"They wish to see you," Lamberti said, glancing sideways at his face.

"I cannot refuse, but I would rather not see them. They ought to
understand that, I think."

He was offended by what seemed very like an intrusion on the privacy of
a suffering that was still keen. Why could they not leave him alone?

"They would not have gone away in any case till you recovered," Lamberti
answered, "but the Contessina would not have the bad taste to wish for a
meeting just now, unless there were a reason which you do not know, and
which I must explain to you, cost what it may."

Guido looked at Lamberti in surprise and then laughed a little
scornfully.

"Is she going to be married?" he asked.

"Perhaps."

"Already!"

His tone was sad, and pitying, and slightly contemptuous. His lips
closed after the single word and he drew his eyelids together, as he
looked steadily out over the d