t of retributive
justice. Her heart throbbed violently, but it was only from the stress
of her thoughts and the intensity of her desire to execute them.

One thing troubled her, the purely material difficulties in the way. She
revolved many plans in her mind. At first she thought of writing to the
Baron asking him to see her, and hinting at submission to his will; but
she abandoned the device as a kind of duplicity that was unworthy of her
high and noble mission. At last she decided to go to the Piazza Leone
late that night and wait for the Baron's return from the Quirinal.
Felice would admit her. She would sit in the Council Room, under the
shaded lamp, until she heard the carriage wheels in the piazza. Then as
the Baron opened the door she would rise out of the red light--and do
it.

In the drawer of a bureau she had found a revolver which Rossi had left
with her on the night he went away. His name had been inscribed on it by
the persons who sent it as a present, but Roma gave no thought to that.
Rossi was in prison, therefore beyond suspicion, and she was entirely
indifferent to detection. When she had done what she intended to do she
would give herself up. She would avow everything, seek no means of
justification, and ask for no mercy even in the presence of death. Her
only defence would be that the Baron, who was guilty, had to be sent to
the supreme tribunal. It would then be for the court to take the
responsibility of fixing the moral weight of her motive in the scales of
human justice.

With these sublime feelings she began to examine the revolver. She
remembered that when Rossi had given it to her she had recoiled from the
touch of the deadly weapon, and it had fallen out of her fingers. No
such fear came to her now, as she turned it over in her delicate hands
and tried to understand its mechanism. There were six chambers, and to
know if they were loaded she pulled the trigger. The vibration and the
deafening noise shook but did not frighten her.

The deaf old woman had heard the shot, and she came upstairs panting and
with a pallid face.

"Mercy, Signora! What's happened? The Blessed Virgin save us! A
revolver!"

Roma tried to speak with unconcern. It was Mr. Rossi's revolver. She had
found it in the bureau. It must be loaded--it had gone off.

The words were vague, but the tone quieted the old woman. "Thank the
saints it's nothing worse. But why are you so pale, Signora? What is the
matter with you?"