rs.

"You heard him speak?"

"I heard his voice at all events."

"It's a wonderful voice, isn't it? And you really heard him? Can it be
possible?"

Elena, the sad figure in the background of these bright pathetic scenes,
thought Roma was hoping for a reconciliation with Rossi. She hinted as
much, and then the fierce joy in the white face faded away.

"Ah, no! I'm not thinking of that, Elena."

Her love was too large for personal thoughts. It had risen higher than
any selfish expectations.

They helped her on to the loggia. The day was warm, and the fresh air
would do her good. She looked out over the city with a loving gaze,
first towards the Piazza Navona, then towards the tower of Monte
Citorio, and last of all towards Trinita de' Monti and the House of the
Four Winds. But she was seeing things as they would be when she was
gone, not to Viterbo, but on a longer journey.

"Elena?"

"Well?"

"Do you think he will ever learn the truth?"

"About the denunciation?"

"Yes."

"I should think he is certain to do so."

"Why I did it, and what tempted me, and ... and everything?"

"Yes, indeed, everything."

"Do you think he will think kindly of me then, and forgive me and be
merciful?"

"I am sure he will."

A mysterious glow came into the pallid face.

"Even if he never learns the truth here, he will learn it hereafter,
won't he? Don't you believe in that, Elena--that the dead know all?"

"If I didn't, how could I bear to think of Bruno?"

"True. How selfish I am! I hadn't thought of that. We are in the same
case in some things, Elena."

The future was shining in the brilliant eyes with the radiance of an
unseen sunrise.

"Dear Elena?"

"Ye-s."

"Do you think it will seem long to wait until he comes?"

"Don't talk like that, Donna Roma."

"Why not? It's only a little sooner or later, you know. Will it?"

Elena had turned aside, and Roma answered herself.

"_I_ don't. I think it will pass like a dream--like going to bed at
night and awaking in the morning. And then both together--there."

She took a long deep breath of unutterable joy.

"Oh," she said, "that I may sleep until he comes--knowing all, forgiving
everything, loving me the same as before, and every cruel thought dead
and gone and forgotten."

She asked for pen and paper and wrote a letter to Rossi:

"DEAREST,--I hear the good news, just as I am on the point of
leaving Rome, that you have returned to it, and I wri