der
on the Official Gazette and heard everything. When my heart was bleeding
for the death of my poor little boy--only seven years of age, such a
curly-headed little fellow, like a sunbeam in a fog, killed in the
riot, your Excellency--he poisoned my mind about my wife, and said she
had run away with Rossi. It was a lie, but I was brought down by
flogging and bread and water and I believed it, because I was mad and my
soul was exhausted and dead. But when I found out who he was I tried to
take back my denunciation, and they wouldn't let me. Your Excellency, I
tell you the truth. Everybody should tell the truth here. I alone am
guilty, and if I have accused anybody else I ask pardon of God. As for
this man, he is an assassin and I can prove it. He used to be at the
embassy in London, and when he was sacked he came to Mr. Rossi and
proposed to assassinate the Prime Minister. Mr. Rossi flung him out of
the house, and that was the beginning of everything."

"This is not true," said Minghelli, red as the gills of a turkey.

"Isn't it? Give me the cross, and let me swear the man a liar," cried
Bruno.

Roma was breathing hard and rising to her feet, but the advocate Fuselli
restrained her and rose himself. In six sentences he summarised the
treatment of Bruno in prison, and denounced it as worthy of the
cruellest epochs of tyrannical domination, in which men otherwise
honourable could become demons in order to save the dynasty and the
institutions and to make their own careers.

"Mr. President," he cried, "I call on you in the name of humanity to say
that justice in Italy has nothing to do with a barbarous system which
aims at obtaining denunciations through jealousy and justice through
revenge."

The president was deeply moved. "I have made a solemn promise under the
shadow of that venerable image"--he pointed to the effigy above him--"to
administer justice in this case, and to the last I will do my duty."

The Public Prosecutor rose again and obtained permission to interrogate
the prisoner.

"You say the witness Minghelli told you that your wife had fled with the
Honourable Rossi?"

"He did, and it was a lie, like all the rest of it."

"How do you know it was a lie?"

Bruno made no answer, and the young officer took up a letter from his
portfolio.

"Do you know the Honourable Rossi's handwriting?"

"Do I know my own ugly fist?"

"Is that the Honourable Rossi's writing?" said the officer, handing the
envelop