No matter! She must do it! She must reveal herself as her heart and instinct might direct. She must claim the parentage of the noblest soul that ever died for liberty, and David Rossi must trust his secret to the bond of blood which would make it impossible for her to betray the foster-son of her own father.

Having come to this conclusion, the light seemed to break in her heavy sky, but the clouds were charged with electricity. As they returned to the studio she was excited and a little hysterical, for she thought the time was near. At that moment a regiment of soldiers passed along under the ilex trees to the Pincio, with their band of music playing as they marched.

"Ah, the dear old days!" said David Rossi. "Everything reminds me of them! I remember that when she was six...."

"Roma?"

"Yes--a regiment of troops returned from a glorious campaign, and the doctor took us to see the illuminations and rejoicings. We came to a great piazza almost as large as the piazza of St. Peter's, with fountains and a tall column in the middle of it."

"I know--Trafalgar Square!"

"Dense crowds covered the square, but we found a place on the steps of a church."

"I remember--St. Martin's Church. You see, I know London."

"The soldiers came in by the big railway station close by...."

"Charing Cross, isn't it."

"And they marched to the tune of the 'British Grenadiers' and the thunder of fifty thousand throats. And as their general rode past, a beacon of electric lights in the centre of the square blazed out like an aureole about the statue of a great Englishman who had died long ago for the cause which had then conquered."

"Gordon!" she cried--she was losing herself every moment.

"'Look, darling!' said the doctor to little Roma. And Roma said, 'Papa, is it God?' I was a tall boy then, and stood beside him. 'She'll never forget that, David,' he said."

"And she didn't ... she couldn't ... I mean.... Have you ever told me what became of her?"

She would reveal herself in a moment--only a moment--after all, it was delicious to play with this sweet duplicity.

"Have you?" she said in a tremulous voice.

His head was down. "Dead!" he answered, and the tool dropped out of her hand on to the floor.

"I was five years in America after the police expelled me from London, and when I returned to England I went back to the little shop in Soho."

She was staring at him and holding her breath. He was looking out of the window.

"The same people were there, and their own daughter was a grown-up girl, but Roma was gone."

She could hear the breath in her nostrils.

"They told me she had been missing for a week, and then ... her body had been found in the river."

She felt like one struck dumb.

"The man took me to the grave. It was the grave of her mother in Kensal Green, and under her mother's name I read her own inscription--'Sacred also to the memory of Roma Roselli, found drowned in the Thames, aged twelve years.'"

The warm blood which had tingled through her veins was suddenly frozen with horror.

"Not to-day," she thought, and at that moment a faint sound of the band on the Pincio came floating in by the open window.

"I must go," said David Rossi, rising.

Then she recovered herself and began to talk on other subjects. When would he come again? He could not say. The parliamentary session opened soon. He would be very busy.

When David Rossi was gone Roma went upstairs, and Natalina met her carrying two letters. One of them was going to the post--it was from the Countess to the Baron. The other was from the Baron to herself.

"MY DEAREST ROMA,--A thousand thanks for the valuable clue about the Grand Hotel. Already we have followed up your lead, and we find that the only David Rossi who was ever a waiter there gave as reference the name of an Italian baker in Soho. Minghelli has gone to London, and I am sending him this further information. Already he is fishing in strange waters, and I am sure you are dying to know if he has caught anything. So am I, but we must possess our souls in patience.

"But, my dearest Roma, what is happening to your handwriting? It is so shaky nowadays that I can scarcely decipher some of it.--With love.

"B."

VII

"DEAR GUARDIAN,--But I'm not--I'm not! I'm not in the least anxious to hear of what Mr. Minghelli is doing in London, because I know he is doing nothing, and whatever he says, either through his own mouth or the mouth of his Italian baker in Soho, I shall never believe a word he utters. As to Mr. Rossi, I am now perfectly sure that he does not identify me at all. He believes my father's daughter is dead, and he has just been telling me a shocking story of how the body of a young girl was picked out of the Thames (about the time you took me away from London) and buried in the name of Roma Roselli. He actually saw the grave and the tombstone! Some scoundrel has been at work somewhere. Who is it, I wonder?--Yours, "R. V."

Having written this letter in the heat and haste of the first moment after David Rossi's departure, she gave it to Bruno to post immediately.

"Just so!" said Bruno to himself, as he glanced at the superscription.

Next morning she dressed carefully, as if expecting David Rossi as usual, but when he did not come she told herself she was glad of it.

Things had happened too hurriedly; she wanted time to breathe and to think.

All day long she worked on the bust. It was a new delight to model by memory, to remember an expression and then try to reproduce it. The greatest difficulty lay in the limitation of her beautiful art. There were so many memories, so many expressions, and the clay would take but one of them.

The next day after that she dressed herself as carefully as before, but still David Rossi did not come. No matter! It would give her time to think of all he had said, to go over his words and stories.

Did he know her? Certainly he knew her! He must have known from the first that she was her father's daughter, or he would never have put himself in her power. His belief in her was such a sweet thing. It was delicious.

Next day also David Rossi did not come, and she began to torture herself with misgivings. Was he indifferent? Had all her day-dreams been delusions? Little as she wished to speak to Bruno, she was compelled to do so.

Bruno hardly lifted his eyes from his chisel and soft iron hammer.

"Parliament is to meet soon," he said, "and when a man is leader of a party he has enough to do, you know."

"Ask him to come to-morrow. Say I wish for one more sitting--only one."

"I'll tell him," said Bruno, with a bob of his head over the block of marble.

But David Rossi did not come the next day either, and Bruno had no better explanation.

"Busy with his new 'Republic' now, and no time to waste, I can tell you."

"He will never come again," she thought, and then everything around and within her grew dark and chill.

She was sleeping badly, and to tire herself at night she went out to walk in the moonlight along the path under the convent wall. She walked as far as the Pincio gates, where the path broadens to a circular space under a table of clipped ilexes, beneath which there is a fountain and a path going down to the Piazza di Spagna. The night was soft and very quiet, and standing under the deep shadows of the trees, with only the cruel stars shining through, and no sound in the air save the sobbing of the fountain, she heard a man's footstep on the gravel coming up from below.

It was David Rossi. He passed within a few yards, yet he did not see her. She wanted to call to him, but she could not do so. For a moment he stood by the deep wall that overlooks the city, and then turned down the path which she had come by. A trembling thought that was afraid to take shape held her back and kept her silent, but the stars beat kindly in an instant and the blood in her veins ran warm. She watched him from where she stood, and then with a light foot she followed him at a distance.