pardon. I cursed her! Yes, it is true that in my blind,
mad passion I.... But let me go back to her on my knees. The rest of my
life spent at her feet will not be enough to wipe out my fault."

"Stay, my son. You shall see her presently."

"Can it be possible that I shall see her? I thought I should never see
her again; but I counted without God. Ah! God is good after all. And
you, Holy Father, you are good too. I will beg her forgiveness, and she
will forgive me. Then we'll fly away somewhere--we'll escape to Africa,
India, anywhere. We'll snatch a few years of happiness, and what more
has anybody a right to expect in this miserable world?"

Exalted in the light of his imaginary future, he seemed to forget
everything else--his crime, his work, his people.

"Is she at home still?"

"She is only a few paces from this place, my son."

"Only a few paces! Oh, let me not lose a moment more. Where is she?"

"In the Castle of St. Angelo," said the Pope.

A dark cloud crossed Rossi's beaming face and his mouth opened as if to
emit a startling cry.

"In ... in prison?"

The Pope bowed.

"What for?"

"The assassination of the Minister."

"Roma?... But what a fool I was not to think of it as a thing that might
happen! I left her with the dead man. Who was to believe her when she
denied that she had killed him?"

"She did not deny it. She avowed it."

"Avowed it? She said that she had...."

The Pope bowed again.

"Then ... then it was ... was it to shield me?"

"Yes."

Rossi's eyes grew moist. He was like another man.

"But the court ... surely no court will believe her."

"She has been tried and sentenced, my son."

"Sentenced? Do you say sentenced? For a crime she did not commit? And to
shield me? Holy Father, would you believe that the last words I spoke to
that woman ... but she is an angel. The authorities must be mad, though.
Did nobody think of me? Didn't it occur to any one that I had been there
that night?"

"There was only one piece of evidence connecting you with the scene of
the crime, my son. It was this."

The Pope drew from his breast the warrant he had taken from Roma.

"_She_ had it?"

"Yes."

Rossi's emotions whirled within him in a kind of hurricane. The despair
which had clamoured so loud looked mean and contemptible in the presence
of the mighty passion which had put it to shame. But after a while his
swimming eyes began to shine, and he said:

"Holy Father, this paper belo