or thought you had better be told exactly, and that is the object of
my errand."

"Yes?" The papers rustled in the Baron's fingers as he shuffled and
sorted them.

The steward told another long story. Her Excellency was weaker, or she
would be quite ungovernable. And so changed! When he was called in
yesterday she was so much altered that he would not have known her. It
was a question of days, and all the servants were saying prayers to Mary
Magdalene.

"Have some dinner downstairs before you return, Nazzareno," said the
Baron. "And when you see the doctor this evening, say I'll come out
some time this week if I can. Good-morning!"

The repulsion the Baron had inspired in Roma deepened to loathing when
he began to speak affectionately the moment the door had closed on the
steward.

"Look at this, dearest. It's from his Majesty."

She did not look at the letter he put before her, so he told her what it
contained. It offered him the Collar of the Annunziata, the highest
order in Italy, making him a cousin to the King.

She could not contain herself any longer. "I want to tell you
something," she said, "so that you may know once for all that it is
useless to waste further thought on me."

He looked at her with an indulgent smile.

"I am married to Mr. Rossi," she said.

"But that is impossible. There was no time."

"We were married religiously, in the parish church, on the morning he
left Rome."

The indulgent smile gave way to a sarcastic one.

"Then why did he leave you behind? If he thought _that_ was a good
marriage, why didn't he take you with him? But perhaps he had his own
reason, and the denunciation of the poor man in prison was not so far
amiss."

"That was an official lie, a cowardly lie," said Roma, and her eyes
burned with anger.

"Was it? Perhaps it was. But I have just heard something else about Mr.
Rossi that is undoubtedly true. I have heard from the Prefect of Paris
that he is organising a conspiracy for the assassination of the King."

A look of fear which she could not restrain crossed Roma's face.

"More than that, and stranger than that, I have just heard also that the
Pope has some knowledge of the plot."

Roma felt terror seizing her, and she said in a constrained voice, "Why?
What has the Pope told you?"

"Only that an insurrection is impending. It seems that his informant is
a woman.... Who can she be, I wonder?"

The Baron was fixing his eyes on her and she tried to elu