Roma, who had turned to the window, heaved a sigh and said: "It has all come out right in the end, Bruno. If you hadn't spoken against me to Mr.

Rossi, he wouldn't have spoken against me in the piazza, and then he and I should never have met and known each other and been friends. All's well that ends well, you know."

"Perhaps so, but the miracle doesn't make the saint, and you oughtn't to keep me any longer."

"Do you mean that I ought to dismiss you?"

"Yes."

"Bruno," said Roma, "I am in trouble just now, and I may be in worse trouble by-and-by. I don't know how long I may be able to keep you as a servant, but I may want you as a friend, and if you leave me now...."

"Oh, put it like that, miss, and I'll never leave you, and as for your enemies...."

Bruno was doubling up the sleeve of his right arm, when Joseph and the poodle came back to the room. Roma received them with a merry cry, and there was much noise and laughter. At length the gorgeous garments were taken off, the cardboard box was corded, and Bruno and the boy prepared to go.

"You'll come again, won't you, Joseph?" said Roma, and the boy's face beamed.

"I suppose this little man means a good deal to his mother, Bruno?"

"Everything! I do believe she'd die, or disappear, or drown herself if anything happened to that boy."

"And Mr. Rossi?"

"He's been a second father to the boy ever since the young monkey was born."

"Well, Joseph must come here sometimes, and let me try and be a second mother to him too.... What is he saying now?"

Joseph had dragged down his father's head to whisper something in his ear.

"He says he's frightened of your big porter downstairs."

"Frightened of _him_! He is only a man, my precious! Tell him you are a little Roman boy, and he'll _have_ to let you up. Will you remember? You will? That's right! By-bye!"

Before going to sleep that night, Roma switched on the light that hung above her head and read her letter again. She had been hoarding it up for that secret hour, and now she was alone with it, and all the world was still.

"_Saturday Night._

"MY DEAR ONE,--Your sweet letter brought me the intoxication of delight, and the momentous matter you speak of is under way. It is my turn to be ashamed of all the great to-do I made about the obstacles to our union when I see how courageous you can be. Oh, how brave women are--every woman who ever marries a man! To take her heart into her hands, and face the unknown in the fate of another being, to trust her life into his keeping, knowing that if he falls she falls too, and will never be the same again! What _man_ could do it? Not one who was ever born into the world. Yet some woman does it every day, promising some man that she will--let me finish your quotation--

"'Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands.'

"Don't think I am too much troubled about the Minghelli matter, and yet it is pitiful to think how merciless the world can be even in the matter of a man's name. A name is only a word, but it is everything to the man who bears it--honour or dishonour, poverty or wealth, a blessing or a curse. If it is a good name, everybody tries to take it away from him, but if it's a bad name and he has attempted to drop it, everybody tries to fix it on him afresh.

"The name I was compelled to leave behind me when I returned to Italy was a bad name in nothing except that it was the name of my father, and if the spies and ferrets of authority ever fix it upon me God only knows what mischief they may do. But one thing _I_ know--that if they do fix my father's name upon me, and bring me to the penalties which the law has imposed on it, it will not be by help of my darling, my beloved, my brave, brave girl with the heart of gold.

"Dearest, I wrote to the Capitol immediately on receiving your letter, and to-morrow morning I will go down myself to see that everything is in train. I don't yet know how many days are necessary to the preparations, but earlier than Thursday it would not be wise to fix the event, seeing that Wednesday is the day of the great mass meeting in the Coliseum, and, although the police have proclaimed it, I have told the people they are to come. There is some risk at the outset, which it would be reckless to run, and in any case the time is short.

"Good-night! I can't take my pen off the paper. Writing to you is like talking to you, and every now and then I stop and shut my eyes, and hear your voice replying. Only it is myself who make the answers, and they are not half so sweet as they would be in reality. Ah, dear heart, if you only knew how my life was full of silence until you came into it, and now it is full of music!

Good-night, again! "D. R.

"_Sunday Morning._

"Just returned from the Capitol. The legal notice for the celebration of a marriage is longer than I expected. It seems that the ordinary term must be twelve days at least, covering two successive Sundays (on which the act of publication is posted on the board outside the office) and three days over. Only twelve days more, my dear one, and you will be mine, mine, mine, and all the world will know!"

It took Roma a good three-quarters of an hour to read this letter, for nearly every word seemed to be written out of a lover's lexicon, which bore secret meanings of delicious import, and imperiously demanded their physical response from the reader's lips. At length she put it between the pillow and her cheek, to help the sweet delusion that she was cheek to cheek with some one and had his strong, protecting arms about her.

Then she lay a long time, with eyes open and shining in the darkness, trying in vain to piece together the features of his face. But in the first dream of her first sleep she saw him plainly, and then she ran, she raced, she rushed to his embrace.

Next day brought a message from the Baron:

"DEAR ROMA,--Come to the Palazzo Braschi to-morrow (Tuesday) morning at eleven o'clock. Don't refuse, and don't hesitate. If you do not come, you will regret it as long as you live, and reproach yourself for ever afterwards.--Yours, "BONELLI."

III

The Palazzo Braschi is a triangular palace, whereof one front faces to the Piazza Navona and the two other fronts to side streets. It is the official palace of the Minister of the Interior, usually the President of the Council and Prime Minister of Italy.

Roma arrived at eleven o'clock, and was taken to the Minister's room immediately, by way of an outer chamber, in which colleagues and secretaries were waiting their turn for an interview. The Baron was seated at a table covered with books and papers. There was a fur rug across his knees, and at his right hand lay a small ivory-handled revolver. He rose as Roma entered, and received her with his great but glacial politeness.

"How prompt! And how sweet you look to-day, my child! On a cheerless morning like this you bring the sun itself into a poor Minister's gloomy cabinet. Sit down."

"You wished to see me?" said Roma.

The Baron rested his elbow on the table, leaned his head on his hand, looked at her with his never-varying smile, and said:

"I hear you are to be congratulated, my dear."

She changed colour slightly.

"Are you surprised that I know?" he asked.

"Why should I be surprised?" she answered. "You know everything.

Besides, this is published at the Capitol, and therefore common knowledge."

His smiling face remained perfectly impassive.

"Now I understand what you meant on Sunday. It is a fact that a wife cannot be called as a witness against her husband."

She knew he was watching her face as if looking into the inmost recesses of her soul.

"But isn't it a little courageous of you to think of marriage?"

"Why courageous?" she asked, but her eyes fell and the colour mounted to her cheek.

"_Why_ courageous?" he repeated.

He allowed a short time to elapse, and then he said in a a low tone, "Considering the past, and all that has happened...."

Her eyelids trembled and she rose to her feet.

"If this is all you wish to say to me...."