to Paris. Write to London by the first post, and when the
letter has come to your hand, do telegraph to me saying so. 'Received,'
that will be sufficient, but if you can add one other little word
expressing your feeling on reading what I wrote--'Forgiven,' for
instance--my feeling will not be happiness, it will be delirium.

"The next thing I have to say, dearest, is about your letters. You know
they are more precious to me than my heart's blood, and there is not a
word or a line of them I would sacrifice for a queen's crown. But they
are so full of perilous opinions and of hints of programmes for
dangerous enterprises, that for your sake I am afraid. It is so good of
you to tell me what you are thinking and doing, and I am so proud to be
the woman who has the confidence as well as the love of the
most-talked-of man in Europe, that it cuts at my heart to ask you to
tell me no more about your political plans. Nevertheless, I must. Think
what would happen if the police took it into their heads to make a
domiciliary visitation in this house. And then think of what a fearful
weapon it puts into the hands of your enemies, if, hearing that I know
so much, they put pressure upon me that I cannot withstand! Of course,
that is impossible. I would die first. But still....

"My last point, dearest...."

Her pen stopped. How was she to put what she wished to say next? David
Rossi was in danger--a double danger--danger from within as well as
danger from without. His last letter showed plainly that he was engaged
in an enterprise which his adversaries would call a plot. Roma
remembered her father, doomed to a life-long exile and a lonely death,
and asked herself if it was not always the case that the reformer partly
reformed his age, and was partly corrupted by it.

If she could only draw David Rossi away from associations that were
always reeking of revolution, if she could bring him back to Rome before
he was too far involved in plots and with plotters! But how could she do
it? To tell him the plain truth that he was going headlong to _domicilio
coatto_ was useless. She must resort to artifice. A light shot through
her brain, her eyes gleamed, and she began again:

"My last point, dearest, is that I am growing jealous. Yes, indeed,
jealous! I know you love me, but knowing it doesn't help me to forget
that you are always meeting women who must admire and love you. I
tremble to think you may be happy with them. I want you to be h