Does she know of your love for her? Is she beautiful? Is she charming? Give me one initial of her name--only one--and I will be good. I am so much in the dark, and I cannot commit myself until I know more.

"You speak of obstacles, and say they are decisive and insurmountable. That's terrible, but perhaps you are only thinking of what the poets call the 'cruel madness' of love, as if its madness and cruelty were sufficient reason for flying away from it. Or perhaps the obstacles are those of circumstances; but in that case, if the woman is the right one, she will be willing to wait for such difficulties to be got over, or even to find her happiness in sharing them.

"See how I plead for my unknown sister! Which is sweet of me, considering that you don't tell me who she is, but leave me to find out if she is likely to suit me. But why not let me help you?

Come at once and talk things over.

"Yet how vain I am! Even while I proffer assistance with so loud a voice, I am smitten cold with the fear of an impediment which you know a thousand times better than I do how to measure and to meet.

Perhaps the woman you speak of is unworthy of your friendship and love. I can understand that to be an insurmountable obstacle. You stand so high, and have to think about your work, your aims, your people. And perhaps it is only a dream and a delusion, a mirage of the heart, that love lifts a woman up to the level of the man who loves her.

"Then there may be some fault--some grave fault. I can understand that too. We do not love because we should, but because we must, and there is nothing so cruel as the inequality of man and woman in the way the world regards their conduct. But I am like a bat in the dark, flying at gleams of light from closely-curtained windows. Will you not confide in me? Do! Do! Do!

"Besides, I have the other matter to talk about. You remember telling me how you kicked out the man M----? He turned spy as the consequence, and has been sent to England. You ought to know that he has been making inquiries about you, and appears to have found out various particulars. Any day may bring urgent news of him, and if you will not come to me I may have to go to you in spite of every protest.

"To-morrow is the day for your opening of Parliament, and I have a ticket for the Court tribune, so you may expect to see me floating somewhere above you in an atmosphere of lace and perfume.

Good-night!--Your poor bewildered sister, ROMA."

IV

Next morning David Rossi put on evening dress, in obedience to the etiquette of the opening day of Parliament. Before going to the ceremony he answered Roma's letter of the night before.

"DEAR R.,--If anything could add to the bitterness of my regret at ending an intercourse which has brought me the happiest moments of my life, it would be the tone of your sweet and charming letter.

You ask me if the woman I love is beautiful. She is more than beautiful, she is lovely. You ask me if she knows that I love her.

I have never dared to disclose my secret, and if I could have believed that she had ever so much as guessed at it, I should have found some consolation in a feeling which is too deep for the humiliations of pride. You ask me if she is worthy of my friendship and love. She is worthy of the love and friendship of a better man than I am or can ever hope to be.

"Yet even if she were not so, even if there were, as you say, a fault in her, who am I that I should judge her harshly? I am not one of those who think that a woman is fallen because circumstances and evil men have conspired against her. I reject the monstrous theory that while a man may redeem the past, a woman never can. I abhor the judgment of the world by which a woman may be punished because she is trying to be pure, and dragged down because she is rising from the dirt. And if she had sinned as I have sinned, and suffered as I have suffered, I would pray for strength enough to say, 'Because I love her we are one, and we stand or fall together.'

"But she is sweet, and pure, and true, and brave, and noble-hearted, and there is no fault in her, or she would not be the daughter of her father, who was the noblest man I ever knew or ever expect to know. No, the root of the separation is in myself, in myself only, in my circumstances and the personal situation I find myself in.

"And yet it is difficult for me to state the obstacle which divides us, or to say more about it than that it is permanent and insurmountable. I should deceive myself if I tried to believe that time would remove or lessen it, and I have contended in vain with feelings which have tempted me to hold on at any price to the only joy and happiness of my life.

"To go to her and open my heart is impossible, for personal intercourse is precisely the peril I am trying to avoid. How weak I am in her company! Even when her dress touches me at passing, I am thrilled with an emotion I cannot master; and when she lifts her large bright eyes to mine, I am the slave of a passion which conquers all my will.

"No, it is not lightly and without cause that I have taken a step which sacrifices love to duty. I love her, with all my heart and soul and strength I love her, and that is why she and I, for her sake more than mine, should never meet again.

"I note what you say about the man M----, but you must forgive me if I cannot be much concerned about it. There is nobody in London who knows me in the character I now bear, and can link it to the one you are thinking of. Good-bye, again! God be with you and keep you always! D."

Having written this letter, David Rossi sealed it carefully and posted it with his own hand on his way to the opening of Parliament.

V

The day was fine, and the city was bright with many flags in honour of the King. All the streets leading from the royal palace to the Hall of the Deputies were lined with people. The square in front of the Parliament House was kept clear by a cordon of Carabineers, but the open windows of the hotels and houses round about were filled with faces.

David Rossi entered the house by the little private door for deputies in the side street. The chamber was already thronged, and as full of movement as a hive of bees. Ladies in light dresses, soldiers in uniform, diplomatists wearing decorations, senators and deputies in white cravats and gloves, were moving to their places and saluting each other with bows and smiles.

Rossi slipped into the place he usually occupied among the deputies. It was the corner seat by the door on the left of the royal canopy, immediately facing the section, which had been apportioned to the Court tribune. He did not lift his eyes as he entered, but he was conscious of a tall, well-rounded yet girlish figure in a grey dress that glistened in a ray of sunshine, with dark hair under a large black hat, and flashing eyes that seemed to pierce into his own like a shaft of light.

Beautiful ladies with big oriental eyes were about her, and young deputies were using their opera-glasses upon them with undisguised curiosity. There was much gossip, some laughter, and a good deal of gesticulation. The atmosphere was one of light spirits, approaching gaiety, the atmosphere of the theatre or the ballroom.

The clock over the reporters' gallery showed seven minutes after the hour appointed, when the walls of the chamber shook with the vibration of a cannon-shot. It was a gun fired at the Castle of St. Angelo to announce the King's arrival. At the same moment there came the muffled strains of the royal hymn played by the band in the piazza. The little gales of gossip died down in an instant, and in dead silence the assembly rose to its feet.

A minute afterwards the King entered amid a fanfare of trumpets, the shouts of many voices, and the clapping of hands. He was a young man, in the uniform of a general, with a face that was drawn into deep lines under the eyes by ill-health and anxiety. Two soldiers, carrying their brass helmets with waving plumes, walked by his side, and a line of his Ministers followed. His Queen, a tall and beautiful girl, came behind, surrounded by many ladies.

The King took his seat under the baldacchino, with his Ministers on his left. The Queen sat on his right hand, with her ladies beside her. They bowed to the plaudits of the assembly, and the drawn face of the young King wore a painful smile.

The Baron Bonelli, in court dress and decorations, stood at the King's elbow, calm, dignified, self-possessed--the one strong face and figure in the group under the canopy. After the cheering and the shouting had subsided he requested the assembly, at the command of His Majesty, to resume their seats. Then he handed a paper to the King.

It was the King's speech to his Parliament, and he read it nervously in a voice that had not learned to control itself. But the speech was sufficiently emphatic, and its words were grandiose and even florid.

It consisted of four clauses. In the first clause the King thanked God that his country was on terms of amity with all foreign countries, and invoked God's help in the preservation of peace. The second clause was about the increase of the army.

"The army," said the King, "is very dear to me, as it has always been dear to my family. My illustrious grandfather, who granted freedom to the kingdom, was a soldier; my honoured father was a soldier, and it is my pride that I am myself a soldier also. The army was the foundation of our liberty and it is now the security of our rights. On the strength and stability of the army rest the power of our nation abroad and the authority of our institutions at home. It is my firm resolve to maintain the army in the future as my illustrious ancestors have maintained it in the past, and therefore my Government will propose a bill which is intended to increase still further its numbers and its efficiency."

This was received with a great outburst of applause and the waving of many handkerchiefs. It was observed that some of the ladies shed tears.

The third clause was about the growth and spread of anarchism.

"My house," said the King, "gave liberty to the nation, and now it is my duty and my hope to give security and strength. It is known to Parliament that certain subversive elements, not in Italy alone, but throughout Europe, throughout the world, have been using the most devilish machinations for the destruction of all order, human and divine. Cold, calculating criminals have perpetrated crimes against the most innocent and the most highly placed, which have sent a thrill of horror into all humane hearts. My Government asks for an absolute power over such criminals, and if we are to bring security to the State, we must reinvigorate the authority to which society trusts the high mandate of protecting and governing."

A still greater outburst of cheering interrupted the young King, who raised his head amid the shouts, the clapping of hands, and the fluttering of handkerchiefs, and smiled his painful smile.

"More than that," continued the King, "I have to deplore the spread of associations, sodalities, and clubs, which, by an erroneous conception of liberty, are disseminating the germs of revolt against the State.

Under the most noble propositions about the moral and economical redemption of the people is hidden a propaganda for the conquest of the public powers.

"My aim is to gain the affection of my people, and to interest them in the cause of order and public security, and therefore my Government will present an urgent bill, which is intended to stop the flowering of these parasitic organisations, by revising these laws of the press and of public meeting, in whose defects agitators find opportunity for their attacks on the doctrines of the State."

A prolonged outburst of applause followed this passage, mingled with a tumult of tongues, which went on after the King had begun to read again, rendering his last clause--an invocation of God's blessing on the deliberations of Parliament--almost inaudible.

The end of the speech was a signal for further cheering, and when the King left the hall, bowing as before, and smiling his painful smile, the shouts of "Long live the King," the clapping of hands, and the waving of handkerchiefs followed him to the street. The entire ceremony had occupied twelve minutes.

Then the clamour of voices drowned the sound of the royal hymn outside.

Deputies were climbing about to join their friends among the ladies, whose light laughter was to be heard on every side.

David Rossi rose to go. Without lifting his head, he had been conscious that during the latter part of the King's speech many eyes were fixed upon him. Playing with his watch-chain, he had struggled to look calm and impassive. But his heart was sick, and he wished to get away quickly.

A partition, shielding the door of the corridor, stood near to his seat, and he was trying to get round it. He heard his name in the air around him, mingled with significant trills and unmistakable accents. All at once he was conscious of a perfume he knew, and of a girlish figure facing him.

"Good-day, Honourable," said a voice that thrilled him like the strings of a harp drawn tight.

He lifted his head and answered. It was Roma. Her face was lighted up with a fire he had never seen before. Only one glance he dared to take, but he could see that at the next instant those flashing eyes would burst into tears.

The tide was passing out by the front doors where the carriages and the reporters waited, but Rossi stepped round to the back. He was on the way to the office of his newspaper, and dipping into the Corso from a lane that crossed it, he came upon the King's carriage returning to the Quirinal. It was entirely surrounded by soldiers, the military commander of Rome on the right, the commander of the Carabineers on the left, and the Cuirassiers, riding two deep, before and behind, so that the King and Queen were scarcely visible to the cheering crowd. Last in the royal procession came an ordinary cab containing two detectives in plain clothes.

The office of the _Sunrise_ was in a narrow lane out of the Corso. It was a dingy building of three floors, with the machine-rooms on the ground-level, the composing-rooms at the top, and the editorial rooms between. Rossi's office was a large apartment, with three desks, that were intended for the editor and his day and night assistants.

His day assistant received him with many bows and compliments. He was a small man with an insincere face.

Rossi drank a cup of coffee and settled to his work. It was an article on the day's doings, more fearless and outspoken than he had ever published before. Such a day as they had just gone through, with the flying of flags and the playing of royal hymns, was not really a day of joy and rejoicing, but of degradation and shame. If the people had known what they were doing, they would have hung their flags with crape and played funeral marches.