The man threw the dagger back on the desk and laughed.

"I knew you talked like that to the people--statesmen do

sometimes--that's all right--it's pretty, and it keeps the people

quiet--but we...."

David Rossi rose with a sovereign dignity, but he only said: "Mr. Minghelli, our interview is at an end."

"So you dismiss me?"

"I do," said David Rossi. "It is such men as you who put back the

progress of the world and make it possible for the upholders of

authority to describe our efforts as devilish machinations for the

destruction of all order, human and divine. Besides that, you speak as

one who has not only a perverted political sentiment, but a personal

quarrel against an enemy."

The man faced round sharply, came back with a quick step, and said:

"You say I speak as one who has a personal quarrel with the Prime

Minister. Perhaps I have! I heard your speech this morning about his

mistress, with her livery of scarlet and gold. You meant the woman who

is known as Donna Roma Volonna. What if I tell you she is not a Volonna

at all, but a girl the Minister picked up in the streets of London, and

has palmed off on Rome as the daughter of a noble house, because he is a

liar and a cheat?"

David Rossi gave a start, as if an invisible hand had smitten him.

"Her name is Roma, certainly," said the man; "that was the first thing

that helped me to seize the mysterious thread."

David Rossi's face grew pale, and he scarcely breathed.

"Oh, I'm not talking without proof," said the man. "I was at the Embassy

in London ten years ago when the Ambassador was consulted by the police

authorities about an Italian girl who had been found at night in

Leicester Square. Mother dead, father gone back to Italy--she had been

living with some people her father gave her to as a child, but had

turned out badly and run away."

David Rossi had fixed his eyes on the stranger with a kind of glassy

stare.

"I went with the Ambassador to Bow Street, and saw the girl in the

magistrate's office. She pleaded that she had been ill-treated, but we

didn't believe her story, and gave her back to her guardians. A month

later we heard that she had run away once more and disappeared

entirely."

David Rossi was breathing audibly, and shrinking like an old man into

his shoulders.

"I never saw that girl again until a week ago, and where do you think I

saw her?"




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