conds passed before Cecilia answered, and then her voice was sad
and low.

"How can I? I do not love him."

The Countess was horror-struck now, for she knew her daughter well. She
began to speak rather incoherently, but with real earnestness, imploring
Cecilia to think of what she was doing before it was too late, to
consider Guido's feelings, her own, everybody's, to reflect upon the
view the world would take of such bad faith, and, finally, to give some
reason for her sudden decision.

It was in vain that she pleaded. Cecilia, grave and suffering, answered
that she had taken everything into consideration and knew that she was
doing right. The world might call it bad faith to break an engagement,
but it would be nothing short of a betrayal to marry Guido since she had
become sure that she could never love him. That was reason enough, and
she would give no other. It was better that Guido should suffer for a
few days than be made to suffer for a lifetime. She had not consulted
any one, she said, when her mother questioned her; she would have done
so if this had been a matter needing judgment and wisdom, but it was
merely one of right and wrong, and she knew what was right, and meant to
do it.

The Countess began to cry, and when Cecilia tried to soothe her, she
pushed the girl aside and left the room in tears. A few minutes later
Petersen telephoned for the carriage, and in less than half an hour the
Countess was on her way to see Princess Anatolie, entirely forgetful of
the fact that Cecilia would be quite alone when Guido came at ten
o'clock.

Cecilia sat quite still in the drawing-room waiting for him. She was
very tired and pale, and her eyes smarted for want of sleep, but her
courage was not likely to fail her. She only wished that all might be
over soon, as condemned men do when they are waiting for execution.

She sat still a long time and she heard the little French clock on her
mother's writing table in the boudoir strike its soft chimes at the
third quarter, and then ring ten strokes at the full hour. She listened
anxiously for the servant's step beyond the door, and now and then she
caught her breath a little when she thought she heard a sound. It was
twenty minutes past ten when the door opened. She expected the man to
stand still, and announce Guido, and she looked away; but the footsteps
came nearer and nearer and stopped beside her. The man held out a small
salver on which lay a note addressed in Gu