ld's
judgment on a woman who has sinned is merciless and cruel, but if David
Rossi is worthy of his mother and his name, he will come back to you on
his knees."

"Bless me, your Holiness."

"I bless you, my daughter. May He in whose hands are the issues of life
and death cover your transgressions with the vast wings of His gracious
pardon and bring you joy and peace."

The Pope went out with a brightening face, and Roma staggered back to
her couch.

VII

David Rossi sat all day in his room in the Vatican reading the letters
the Pope had left with him. They were the letters which Roma had
addressed to him in London, Paris, and Berlin.

He read them again and again, and save for the tick of the clock there
was no sound in the large gaunt room but his stifled moans. The most
violently opposed feelings possessed him, and he hardly knew whether he
was glad or sorry that thus late, and after a cruel fate had fallen,
these messages of peace had reached him.

A spirit seemed to emanate from the thin transparent sheets of paper,
and it penetrated his whole being. As he read the words, now gay, now
sad, now glowing with joy, now wailing with sorrow, a world of fond and
tender emotions swelled up and blotted out all darker passions.

He could see Roma herself, and his heart throbbed as of old under the
influence of her sweet indescribable presence. Those dear features,
those marvellous eyes, that voice, that smile--they swam up and tortured
him with love and with remorse.

How bravely she had withstood his enemies! To think of that young,
ardent, brilliant, happy life sacrificed to his sufferings! And then her
poor, pathetic secret--how sweet and honest she had been about it! Only
a pure and courageous woman could have done as she did; while he, in his
blundering passion and mad wrath, had behaved like a foul-minded tyrant
and a coward. What loud protestations of heroic love he had made when he
imagined the matter affected another man! And when he had learned that
it concerned himself, how his vaunted constancy had failed him, and he
had cursed the poor soul whose confidence he had invited!

But above all the pangs of love and remorse, Rossi was conscious of an
overpowering despair. It took the form of revolt against God, who had
allowed such a blind and cruel sequence of events to wreck the lives of
two of His innocent children. When he took refuge in the Vatican he must
have been cl