"The Baron is dead. He was a cruel, heartless tyrant, without mercy or

humanity. His death has altered everything, and the load that lay on

Italy has been lifted away. But none the less you did wrong, very, very

wrong, and by the mad act of a moment.... My child! My poor child! God

help you! God help this little lost one!"

He patted the hand that lay in his as if he had been quieting a crying

child.

"My child, I cannot save you from the consequences of your sin. You must

go where I cannot follow you. But since the Holy Father induced you to

make that cruel denunciation--but let us be calm--let us be calm!"

Roma was perfectly calm, but the Pope could barely control himself.

"I see now that we made a mistake. The conspiracies of David Rossi were

not criminal, and his aims were not unrighteous. I have been instructed

on this subject, and now I see everything in a different light. Yes, a

great mistake, although a natural and excusable one, and if that was the

cause and origin of this terrible event, the Holy Father who led you so

far...."

"Your Holiness!"

"Nay, you must not expect too much. It is little I can do. But now that

governments are falling and parliaments are being dissolved, David Rossi

must come back...."

Roma made a cry of joy, and the Pope raised a warning finger.

"Ah, you must never think of that, my child--you must never think of it.

It is a pity, a great pity, but, alas! it cannot be otherwise now. If

your husband is to come back, his name must be kept clean and

unblemished, and you can never rejoin him whatever happens."

Dizzy with a sense of the Pope's awful error, Roma turned away her face.

"But if you tell me that what you did was due to the compulsion that was

put upon you to denounce David Rossi, he must come forward, whatever the

consequences, to defend you and plead for you. He must say to the world

and to your judges: 'It is true that this poor lady has committed a

crime--an awful crime, such as shuts the guilty one out of the fold of

the human family--but she was provoked to it by a falsehood. The dead

man deceived her. He was her betrayer, her assassin, for he tried to

slay her soul. Therefore you will have mercy upon her as you hope for

mercy, you will forgive her as you hope for forgiveness, and in the

peace and penance of some holy convent she will wipe out the past of her

unhappy life as Mary wiped out her sins in the tears with which she

washed her Master's feet.'"




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