"I am better now. Go on," she said.
The whirring noise began again, and after a moment the clear voice came as before:
"My son, the promise I made when we parted in London I fulfilled faithfully, but the letter I wrote you never came to your hands. It was meant to tell you who I was, and why I changed my name. That is too long a story now, and I must be brief. I am Prospero Volonna. My father was the last prince of that name. Except the authorities and their spies, nobody in Italy knows me as Roselli and nobody in England as Volonna—nobody but one, my poor dear child, my daughter Roma."
The hand tightened on Rossi's arm, and his head began to swim.
"Little by little, in this grave of a living man, I have heard what has happened since I was banished from the world. The treacherous letter which called me back to Italy and decoyed me into the hands of the police was the work of a man who now holds my estates as the payment for his treachery."
"The Baron?"
Rossi had stopped the phonograph.
"Can you bear it?" he said.
The pale young face flushed with resolution.
"Go on," she said.