On the dark drive to the prison in the Via Filangeri the Carabineers

grumbled and swore at the hard fate which kept them out of Rome at a

time of public rejoicing. There was to be a dinner on Monday night at

the barracks on the Prati, and on Tuesday morning the King was to

present medals.

Rossi shut his eyes and said nothing. But half-an-hour later, when he

had been put in the "paying" cell, and the marshal of Carabineers was

leaving him, he could not forbear to speak.

"Officer," he said, fumbling his copy of the warrant, "would you mind

telling me where you received this paper?"

"At the Procura, of course," said the soldier.

"Some one had denounced me there--can you tell me who it was?"

"That's no business of mine, Honourable. Still, as you wish to know...."

"Well?"

"A lady was there when the warrant was made out, and if I had to guess

who she was...."

Rossi saw the name coming in the man's face, and he flung out at him in

a roar of wrath.

During the long hours of the night he tried to account for his arrest to

the exclusion of Roma. He thought of every woman whom he had known

intimately in England and America, and finally of Elena and old

Francesca. It was useless. There was only one woman in the world who

knew the secrets of his early life. He had revealed some of them

himself, and the rest she knew of her own knowledge.

No matter! There was no traitor so treacherous as circumstance. He would

not believe the lie that fate was thrusting down his throat. Roma was

faithful, she would die rather than betray him, and he was a

contemptible hound to allow himself to think of her in that connection.

He recalled her letters, her sacrifices, her brave and cheerful

renunciation, and the hard lump that had settled at his heart rose up to

his throat.

Morning broke at last. As the grey dawn entered the cell the Easter

bells were ringing. Rossi remembered in what other conditions he had

expected to hear them, and again his heart grew bitter. A good-natured

warder came with his breakfast of bread and water, and a smuggled copy

of a morning journal called the Perseveranza. It contained an account

of his arrest, and a leading article on his career as a thing closed

and ruined. The public would learn with astonishment that a man who had

attained to great prominence in Parliament and lived several years in

the fierce light of the world's eye, had all the time masqueraded in a

false character, being really a criminal convicted long ago for

conspiring against the person of the late King.




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