She
knew the step. It was the Baron's.

She stopped, with an indescribable sense of terror, and gazed at the
door. It stood partly open as the Garibaldian had left it.

Through the door the Baron was about to enter. He was coming up, up,
up--to his death. Some supernatural power was sending him.

She grew dizzy and quaked in every limb. Still the step outside came on.
At length it reached the top, and there was a knock at the door. At
first she could not answer, and the knock was repeated.

Then the free use of her faculties came back to her. There was more of
the Almighty in all this than of her own design. It _was_ to be. God
intended her to kill this guilty man.

"Come in!" she cried.

IV

When the Baron awoke on Saturday he remembered Roma with a good deal of
self-reproach, and everything that happened during the following days
made him think of her with tenderness. During the morning an
aide-de-camp brought him the casket containing the Collar of the
Annunziata, and spoke a formal speech. He fingered the jewelled band and
golden pendant as he made the answer prescribed by etiquette, but he was
thinking of Roma and the joy she might have felt in hailing him cousin
of the King.

Towards noon he received the telegram which announced the death of his
maniac wife, and he set off instantly for his castle in the Alban Hills.
He remained long enough to see the body removed to the church, and then
returned to Rome. Nazzareno carried to the station the little hand-bag
full of despatches with which he had occupied the hour spent in the
train. They passed by the tree which had been planted on the first of
Roma's Roman birthdays. It was covered with white roses. The Baron
plucked one of them, and wore it in his button-hole on the return
journey.

Before midnight he was back in the Piazza Leone, where the Commendatore
Angelelli was waiting with news of the arrest of Rossi. He gave orders
to have the editor of the _Sunrise_ sent to him so that he might make a
tentative suggestion. But in spite of himself his satisfaction at
Rossi's complete collapse and possible extermination was disturbed by
pity for Roma.

Sunday was given up to the interview with the journalist, the last
preparations for the Jubilee, and various secular duties. Monday's
ceremonials began with the Mass. The Piazza of the Pantheon was lined
with a splendid array of soldiers in glistening breastplates and
helmets, a