On the dark drive to the prison in the Via Filangeri the Carabineers
grumbled and swore at the hard fate which kept them out of Rome at a
time of public rejoicing. There was to be a dinner on Monday night at
the barracks on the Prati, and on Tuesday morning the King was to
present medals.

Rossi shut his eyes and said nothing. But half-an-hour later, when he
had been put in the "paying" cell, and the marshal of Carabineers was
leaving him, he could not forbear to speak.

"Officer," he said, fumbling his copy of the warrant, "would you mind
telling me where you received this paper?"

"At the Procura, of course," said the soldier.

"Some one had denounced me there--can you tell me who it was?"

"That's no business of mine, Honourable. Still, as you wish to know...."

"Well?"

"A lady was there when the warrant was made out, and if I had to guess
who she was...."

Rossi saw the name coming in the man's face, and he flung out at him in
a roar of wrath.

During the long hours of the night he tried to account for his arrest to
the exclusion of Roma. He thought of every woman whom he had known
intimately in England and America, and finally of Elena and old
Francesca. It was useless. There was only one woman in the world who
knew the secrets of his early life. He had revealed some of them
himself, and the rest she knew of her own knowledge.

No matter! There was no traitor so treacherous as circumstance. He would
not believe the lie that fate was thrusting down his throat. Roma was
faithful, she would die rather than betray him, and he was a
contemptible hound to allow himself to think of her in that connection.
He recalled her letters, her sacrifices, her brave and cheerful
renunciation, and the hard lump that had settled at his heart rose up to
his throat.

Morning broke at last. As the grey dawn entered the cell the Easter
bells were ringing. Rossi remembered in what other conditions he had
expected to hear them, and again his heart grew bitter. A good-natured
warder came with his breakfast of bread and water, and a smuggled copy
of a morning journal called the _Perseveranza_. It contained an account
of his arrest, and a leading article on his career as a thing closed
and ruined. The public would learn with astonishment that a man who had
attained to great prominence in Parliament and lived several years in
the fierce light of the world's eye, had all the time masqueraded in a
false character, being really