n this home of silence.

They went up on to the roof. From that height the whole world around
seemed to be invaded by silence.

It was the silence of all sacred things, the silence of the mass; and
the undying paganism in the hearts of the two that stood there had its
eloquent silence also.

Roma was leaning on the parapet with David Rossi behind her, when
suddenly she began to weep. She wept violently and sobbed.

"What is it?" he asked, but she did not answer.

After a while she grew calm and dried her eyes, called herself foolish,
and began to laugh. But the heart-beats were too audible without saying
something, and at length she tried to speak.

"It was the poor boy at the inn," she said; "the sight of his sweet face
brought back a scene I had quite forgotten," and then, in a faltering
voice, turning her head away, she told him everything.

"It was in London, and my father had found a little Roman boy in the
streets on a winter's night, carrying a squirrel and playing an
accordion. He wore a tattered suit of velveteens, and that was all that
sheltered his little body from the cold. His fingers were frozen stiff,
and he fainted when they brought him into the house. After a while he
opened his eyes, and gazed around at the fire and the faces about him,
and seemed to be looking for something. It was his squirrel, and it was
frozen dead. But he grasped it tight and big tears rolled on to his
cheeks, and he raised himself as if to escape. He was too weak for that,
and my father comforted him and he lay still. That was when I saw him
first; and looking at the poor boy at the inn I thought ... I thought
perhaps he was another ... perhaps my little friend of long ago...."

Her throat was throbbing, and her faltering voice was failing like a
pendulum that is about to stop.

"Roma!" he cried over her shoulder.

"David!"

Their eyes met, their hands clasped, their pent-up secret was out, and
in the dim-lit catacombs of love two souls stood face to face.

"How long have you known it?" she whispered.

"Since the night you came to the Piazza Navona. And you?"

"Since the moment I heard your voice." And then she shuddered and
laughed.

When they left the house of silence a blessed hush had fallen on them, a
great wonder which they had never known before, the wonder of the
everlasting miracle of human hearts.

The sun was sitting behind Rome in a glorious blaze of crimson, with the
domes of churches glistening i