"Your Holiness!"

"He shall go to the courts and say: 'This lady is innocent. She sacrificed herself to save my life. I do not ask for mercy. I ask for justice. Liberate her and arrest me.'"

Roma had knelt again, and was fingering the skirt of the Pope's cassock.

"But, Holy Father," she said, "there is something I have not told you.

He who killed the Minister did so in self-defence...."

"In self-defence!"

"His act was an accident, and if it had not happened the Minister would have killed him, whereas I...."

"In self-defence, you say?"

"I am really guilty of the crime, because I intended to commit it."

"But if it was done in self-defence it was no crime, and you must not and shall not suffer."

Roma dropped the Pope's cassock and took hold of his hand.

"Holy Father," she said, "how can I wish to live when he who loved me loves me no longer? I know quite well it is better that I should go, and that when he comes it should be all over. I dreamt of it last night, your Holiness. I thought my husband had come back and all the church bells were ringing. Only a dream, and perhaps you do not believe in such foolishness. But it was very sweet to think that if I could not live for my love I could die for him, and so wipe out everything."

The Pope's white head was bent very low.

"And then I cannot suffer very much, your Holiness. I am ill, really ill, and my trouble will not last very long. And if God is using what has happened to bring out all things well, perhaps He intends that I shall give myself in the place of some one who is better and more necessary."

The Pope could bear no more. His lip quivered and his voice shook, but his eyes were shining.

"It is not for me to gainsay you, my daughter. I came here to see Mary Magdalene, and find the soul of the saints themselves. The world's judgment on a woman who has sinned is merciless and cruel, but if David Rossi is worthy of his mother and his name, he will come back to you on his knees."

"Bless me, your Holiness."

"I bless you, my daughter. May He in whose hands are the issues of life and death cover your transgressions with the vast wings of His gracious pardon and bring you joy and peace."

The Pope went out with a brightening face, and Roma staggered back to her couch.

VII

David Rossi sat all day in his room in the Vatican reading the letters the Pope had left with him. They were the letters which Roma had addressed to him in London, Paris, and Berlin.

He read them again and again, and save for the tick of the clock there was no sound in the large gaunt room but his stifled moans. The most violently opposed feelings possessed him, and he hardly knew whether he was glad or sorry that thus late, and after a cruel fate had fallen, these messages of peace had reached him.

A spirit seemed to emanate from the thin transparent sheets of paper, and it penetrated his whole being. As he read the words, now gay, now sad, now glowing with joy, now wailing with sorrow, a world of fond and tender emotions swelled up and blotted out all darker passions.

He could see Roma herself, and his heart throbbed as of old under the influence of her sweet indescribable presence. Those dear features, those marvellous eyes, that voice, that smile--they swam up and tortured him with love and with remorse.

How bravely she had withstood his enemies! To think of that young, ardent, brilliant, happy life sacrificed to his sufferings! And then her poor, pathetic secret--how sweet and honest she had been about it! Only a pure and courageous woman could have done as she did; while he, in his blundering passion and mad wrath, had behaved like a foul-minded tyrant and a coward. What loud protestations of heroic love he had made when he imagined the matter affected another man! And when he had learned that it concerned himself, how his vaunted constancy had failed him, and he had cursed the poor soul whose confidence he had invited!

But above all the pangs of love and remorse, Rossi was conscious of an overpowering despair. It took the form of revolt against God, who had allowed such a blind and cruel sequence of events to wreck the lives of two of His innocent children. When he took refuge in the Vatican he must have been clinging to some waif and stray of hope. It was gone now, and there was no use struggling. The nothingness of man against the pitilessness of fate made all the world a blank.

Rossi had rung the bell to ask for an audience with his Holiness when the door opened and the Pope himself entered.

"Holy Father, I wished to speak to you."

"What about, my son?"

"Myself. Now I see that I did wrong to ask for your protection. You thought I was innocent, and there was something I did not tell you. When I said I was guilty before God and man, you did not understand what I meant. Holy Father, I meant that I had committed murder."

The Pope did not answer, and Rossi went on, his voice ringing with the baleful sentiments which possessed him.

"To tell you the truth, Holy Father, I hardly thought of it myself. What I had done was partly in self-defence, and I did not consider it a crime. And then, he whose life I had taken was an evil man, with the devil's dues in him, and I felt no more remorse after killing him than if I had trodden on a poisonous adder. But now I see things differently.

In coming here I exposed you to danger at the hands of the State. I ask your pardon, and I beg you to let me go."

"Where will you go to?"

"Anywhere--nowhere--I don't know yet."

The Pope looked at the young face, cut deep with lines of despair, and his heart yearned over it.

"Sit down, my son. Let us think. Though you did not tell me of the assassination, I soon knew all about it.... Partly in self-defence, you say?"

"That is so, but I do not urge it as an excuse. And if I did, who else knows anything about it?"

"Is there nobody who knows?"

"One, perhaps. But it is my wife, and she could have no interest in saving me now, even if I wished to be saved.... I have read her letters."

"If I were to tell you it is not so, my son--that your wife is still ready to sacrifice herself for your safety...."

"But that is impossible, your Holiness. There are so many things you do not know."

"If I were to tell you that I have just seen her, and, notwithstanding your want of faith in her, she still has faith in you...."

The deep lines of despair began to pass from Rossi's face, and he made a cry of joy.

"If I were to say that she loves you, and would give her life for you...."

"Is it possible? Do you tell me that? In spite of everything? And she--where is she? Let me go to her. Holy Father, if you only knew! I'll go and beg her pardon. I cursed her! Yes, it is true that in my blind, mad passion I.... But let me go back to her on my knees. The rest of my life spent at her feet will not be enough to wipe out my fault."

"Stay, my son. You shall see her presently."

"Can it be possible that I shall see her? I thought I should never see her again; but I counted without God. Ah! God is good after all. And you, Holy Father, you are good too. I will beg her forgiveness, and she will forgive me. Then we'll fly away somewhere--we'll escape to Africa, India, anywhere. We'll snatch a few years of happiness, and what more has anybody a right to expect in this miserable world?"

Exalted in the light of his imaginary future, he seemed to forget everything else--his crime, his work, his people.

"Is she at home still?"