"No," Lamberti answered very quietly. "I am not."

"It was only a dream for me, after all," Guido said, after a little while. "You have the reality. She used to talk of three great questions, and I remember them now as if I heard her asking them: 'What can I know? What is it my duty to do? What may I hope?' Those were the three."

"And the answers?"

"Nothing, nothing, nothing. Those are my answers. Unless—"

He stopped.

"Unless—what?" Lamberti asked.

Guido smiled a little.

"Unless there is really something beyond it all, something essentially true, something absolute by nature."

Lamberti had never known his friend to admit such a possibility even under a condition.

"At all events," Guido added, "our friendship is true and absolute. Shall we go home? I feel a little tired."