The sun shone, the sparrows chirped, the church bells rang the whole day

long. Towards evening the warder came with another newspaper, the

Corriere della Sera. It explained that the sensational arrest of the

illustrious Deputy, which had fallen on the country like a thunderbolt,

was not intended as punishment for an offence long past and forgotten,

but as a means of preventing a political crime that was on the eve of

being committed. The Deputy had been abroad since the unhappy riots of

the First of February, and advices from foreign police left no doubt

whatever that he had contemplated a preposterous raid of the combined

revolutionary clubs of Europe against Italy, timed with almost fiendish

imagination to break out on the festival of the King's Jubilee.

Rossi slept as little on Sunday night as on the night before. The

horrible doubts which he had driven away were sucking at his heart like

a vampire. He tried to invent excuses for Roma. She was intimidated; she

was a woman and she could not help herself. Useless, and worse than

useless! "I thought the daughter of Joseph Roselli would have died

first," he told himself.

The good-natured warder brought him another newspaper in the morning,

the Secolo, an organ of his own party. Its tone was the bitterest of

all. "We have reason to believe that the unfortunate event, which cannot

but have the effect of setting back the people's cause, is due to the

betrayal of one of their leaders by a certain fashionable woman who is

near to the person of the President of the Council. It is the old story

over again, the story of man's weakness and woman's deception, with

every familiar circumstance of humiliation, folly, and shame."

There could be no doubt of it. It was Roma who had betrayed him.

Whatever her reasons or excuse, the result was the same. She had given

up the deepest secrets of his soul, and his life's work was in the dust.

The marshal of Carabineers came to say that they were to go on to Rome,

and at nine o'clock they were again in the train. People in holiday

dress were promenading the platform and the station was hung with flags.

A gentleman in a white waistcoat was about to step into the compartment

with the Carabineers and their prisoner, when, recognising his

travelling companions, he bowed and stepped back. It was the Sergeant of

the Chamber, returning after the Easter vacation from his villa on one

of the lakes. Rossi sent a ringing laugh after the man, and that brought

him back.




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