“I wish I had counted the slices of bread I have eaten,” said Sabina at last.

Malipieri laughed gaily.  It did not seem possible that an hour or two earlier they had been looking death in the face.  But his laughter died away suddenly, and he was very grave in a moment.

“I do not know what to do now,” he said.  “We shall have to make the Baroness believe that you have spent the night at Sassi’s house.  That is the only place where you can possibly be supposed to have been.  I am not good at lying, I believe.  Can you help me at all?”

Sabina laughed.

“That is a flattering way of putting it!” she answered.  “It is true that I was brought up to lie about everything, but I never liked it.  The others used to ask me why I would not, and whether I thought myself better than they.”

“What are we to do?”

“Suppose that we tell the truth,” said Sabina, nibbling thoughtfully at a last slice of bread.  “It is much easier, you know.”

“Yes.”

Malipieri set his elbows on the table, leaned his bearded chin upon his scarred knuckles and looked at her.  He wondered whether in her innocence she even faintly guessed what people would think of her, if they knew that she had spent a night in his rooms.  He had no experience at all of young girls, and he wondered whether there were many like Sabina.  He thought it unlikely.

“I believe in telling the truth, too,” he said at last.  “But when you do, you must trust the person to whom it is told.  Now the person in this case will be the Baroness Volterra.  I shall have to go and see her in the morning, and tell her what has happened.  Then, if she believes me, she must come here in a cab and take you back.  That will be absolutely necessary.  You need say nothing that I have not said, and I shall say nothing that is not true.”

“That is the best way,” said Sabina, who liked the simplicity of the plan.

Her voice sounded sleepy, and she suppressed a little yawn.

“But suppose that she refuses to believe me,” Malipieri continued, without noticing her weariness, “what then?”

“What else can she believe?” asked Sabina indifferently.

Malipieri did not answer for a long time, and looked away, while he thought over the very difficult situation.  When he turned to her again, he saw that she was resting her head in her hand and that her eyes were closed.

“You are sleepy,” he said.

She looked up, and smiled, hardly able to keep her eyes open.

“So sleepy!” she answered slowly.  “I cannot keep awake a moment longer.”

“You must go to bed,” he said, rising.

“Yes—­anywhere!  Only let me sleep.”

“You will have to sleep in my room.  Do you mind very much?”

“Anywhere!” She hardly knew what she said, she hardly saw his face any longer.

He led the way with one of the lights, and she followed him with her eyes half shut.