"Did he ever return?"

"Yes! Love of home in him, as in all homeless ones, was a consuming passion, and he came back to Italy."

"Where--where is he _now_?"

David Rossi stepped up to her, and said:

"In this room."

She rose:

"Then _you_ are David Leone!"

He raised one hand:

"_David Leone is dead!_"

There was silence for a moment. She could hear the thumping of her heart. Then she said in an almost inaudible whisper:

"I understand. David Leone is dead, but David Rossi is alive."

He did not speak, but his head was held up and his face was shining.

"Are you not afraid to tell me this?"

"No."

Her eyes glistened and her lips quivered.

"You insulted and humiliated me in public this morning, yet you think I will keep your secret?"

"I _know_ you will."

She felt a sensation of swelling in her throbbing heart, and with a slow and nervous gesture she held out her hand.

"May I ... may I shake hands with you?" she said.

There was a moment of hesitation, and then their hands seemed to leap at each other and clasp with a clasp of fire.

At the next instant he had lifted her hand to his lips and was kissing it again and again.

A sensation of triumphant joy flashed through her, and instantly died away. She wished to cry out, to confess, to say something, she knew not what. But _David Leone is dead_ rang in her ears, and at the same moment she remembered what the impulse had been which brought her to that house.

Then her eyes began to swim and her heart to fail, and she wanted to fly away without uttering another word. _She_ could not speak, _he_ could not speak; they stood together on a precipice where only by silence could they hold their heads.

"Let me go home," she said in a breaking voice, and with downcast head and trembling limbs she stepped to the door.

IX

Reaching the door, she stopped, as if reluctant to leave, and said in a voice still soft, but coming more from within:

"I wished to meet you face to face, but now that I have met you, you are not the man I thought you were."

"Nor you," he said, "the woman I pictured you."

A light came into her eyes at that, and she looked up and said:

"Then you had never seen me before?"

And he answered after a moment:

"I had never seen Donna Roma Volonna until to-day."

"Forgive me for coming to you," she said.

"I thank you for doing so," he replied, "and if I have sinned against you, from this hour onward I am your friend and champion. Let me try to right the wrong I have done you. What I said was the result of a mistake--let me ask your forgiveness."

"You mean publicly?"

"Yes!"

"You are very good, very brave," she said; "but no, I will not ask you to do that."

"Ah! I understand. I know it is impossible to overtake a lie. Once started it goes on and on, like a stone rolling down-hill, and even the man who started can never stop it. Tell me what better I can do--tell me, tell me."

Her face was still down, but it had now a new expression of joy.

"There is one thing you can do, but it is difficult."

"No matter! Tell me what it is."

[Illustration: THEY STOOD TOGETHER ON A PRECIPICE.]

"I thought when I came here ... but it is no matter."

"Tell me, I beg of you."

He was trying to look into her face again, and she was eluding his gaze as before, but now for another, a sweeter reason.

"I thought if--if you would come to my house when my friends are there, your presence as my guest, in the midst of those in whose eyes you have injured me, might be sufficient of itself to wipe out everything.

But...."

"Is that _all_?" he said.

"Then you are not afraid?"

"Afraid?"