“I’m sorry! Very sorry! For in that case I may be compelled to justify your conclusion that a Minister has no humanity and no pity. It may even be necessary to play the part of the husband in the cruel story of the lover’s heart. If David Rossi cannot be arrested by the authorisation of Parliament, he must be arrested when Parliament is not in session, and then his identity will have to be established in a public tribunal. In that event you will be forced to appear, and having refused to make a private statement in the secrecy of a magistrate’s office, you will be compelled to testify in the Court of Assize.”
“Ah, but you can’t make me do that!” cried Roma excitedly, as if seized by a sudden thought.
“Why not?”
“Never mind why not. That’s my secret. You can’t do it, I tell you,” she cried excitedly.
He looked at her as if trying to penetrate her meaning, and then said:
“We shall see.”
And, indeed, Roma is not so secure as she imagines. She is relying on the fact that, according to the law of nearly every civilised nation, a wife is not permitted to give evidence against her husband. The Baron is ignorant that Rossi and she are man and wife. But alas! she is not Rossi’s wife, not even according to the rules of the Church. She has not been baptised, and an unbaptised woman cannot be a daughter of the Church, and a woman who is not a daughter of the Church cannot claim the Church’s privileges.
Meanwhile Rossi is in London, Paris, Berlin, Geneva, addressing meetings, and organising a tremendous demonstration which is to take place in Rome. But his letters are necessarily vague—mere hints of what is about to come to pass; and gradually the thought grows in Roma’s mind that the secret work upon which he is engaged in is nothing more or less than a conspiracy to take the King’s life. Terror seizes hold on her and she knows not what to do. And all the time she is pursued by a terrible remorse: she has never told Rossi of the one dark stain on her life. She has never told him that, against her will, Baron Bonelli seduced her, and that she still remained his friend. That brief, terrible hour has tormented her soul with the torments of hell. Ought she to tell the man she thinks is her husband? She cannot answer this question, so she confesses, and the priest refers her to the Pope himself. And then in an extraordinarily vivid and beautiful scene the Pope urges her to confess everything to Rossi; but this she has already done. However, her husband has not replied. The letters she has written have miscarried, but she imagines that her confession has killed his love, or roused his anger. The plot is too intricate and delicately handled at this point to be related in detail without great risk of damaging its interest and spoiling its effect; suffice it to say that, acting on the purest and most generous motives, but deceived by circumstance, Roma betrays her husband, and he is captured by the police when he is on his way home to peace and happiness. He escapes, seeks out Roma, and confronts her with her perfidy. She admits it, but says she can explain all. In the midst of her wild, vehement talking, Baron Bonelli enters from an inner room. A fight ensues between Rossi and the Baron. The latter is mortally wounded, and Roma is left alone to wait on him—her bitterest enemy—in his dying hour. This is, perhaps, the most powerful scene in the book; it is certain it is the most dramatic. But it would be an invidious task to select one particular scene as being more skilful and effective than any other, when there are so many supremely skilful and effective scenes.
The rest of the story is of breathless interest. Roma is found with the body of the dead Baron, is accused of murder, and pleads guilty. She receives her sentence of imprisonment quite calmly, happy in the thought that in sacrificing herself she is helping on the cause of her husband, and suffering in his stead. Meanwhile David Rossi, on the point of suicide, and suffering a thousand torments through what seems to him to be Roma’s treachery, seeks sanctuary at the Vatican. The Pope receives him and grants him what he asks. Too bewildered by the stress of recent events to think, he does not realise Roma’s danger; it never occurs to him that she may be seized upon as Bonelli’s murderer. But soon it reaches the ears of the Pope that Rossi is the guilty one, and not Roma, and on David asking for an interview the following scene takes place:—
“Holy Father, I wished to speak to you.”