e the end of my trial, and that was why
I asked for Father Pifferi."

"Then take care--accuse nobody else, my daughter."

Roma put her hands together, repeated the Confiteor, and then said:

"Father, I am a great, great sinner, and when I charged myself in court
with having killed the Minister, I told falsehood to shield another."

"My child!" The Pope had risen to his feet.

There was a moment of painful silence, and then the Pope sat down again
with rigid limbs, saying in a husky voice:

"Go on, my daughter."

Roma went on with her confession. She told of the mad impulse that came
to her to kill the Baron after he had forced her to denounce her
husband. She told of her preparations for killing him, and of the
incidents of the night of the crime when she was making ready to set out
on her awful errand.

"But he came to me in my own rooms at that very moment, your Holiness,
and then...."

"In ... your own rooms?"

"Yes, indeed, and that was really the cause of everything."

"How so?"

"Somebody else came afterwards."

"Somebody else?"

"A friend."

"A ... friend?"

She hesitated for a moment, and then put her hand into her breast and
drew out the warrant.

"This one," she said, in a voice that was scarcely audible.

The Pope took the paper, and it rustled as he opened it. There was no
other sound in the prison cell except the rasping noise of his rapid
breathing.

"David Leone! You don't mean to say--to imply...."

The Pope's eyes wandered vaguely around, but they came back to the face
at his feet, and he said:

"No, no! You cannot mean that, my child. Tell me I have misunderstood
you and come to a wrong conclusion."

Roma did not reply. Her head sunk lower and lower, and seeing this, the
Pope rose again, and standing over her he cried:

"Tell me! Tell me, I command you! You wish me to believe that it was he,
not you, who committed the crime! Out on you! out on you!"

But having said this in a hoarse and angry voice, he passed his arm over
his eyes as if to brush away the clouds that had gathered there, and
muttered in a broken and feeble way, "O God, Thou knowest my
foolishness. I am poor and needy. Make haste unto me, O God! Hide not
Thy face from Thy servant, for I am in trouble."

Roma was crying at the Pope's feet, and after a moment he became aware
of it, and stooped to lift her up.

"My child! My poor, poor child! You must bear with me. I am an old man
now. Only a weak old man.