David Rossi was tearing up the second of his manifestoes when this person came to say that a lady in the outer office was asking to see him.
"Show her into the private waiting-room," said Rossi.
"But may I suggest," said the man, "that considering who the lady is, it would perhaps be better to see her elsewhere?"
"Show her into the private room, sir," said Rossi, and the man shrugged his shoulders and disappeared.
As David Rossi opened the door of a small room at his right hand, something rustled lightly in the corridor outside, and a moment afterwards Roma glided into his arms. She was pale and nervous, and after a moment she began to cry.
"Dear one," said Rossi, pressing her head against his breast, "what has happened? Tell me! Something has frightened you. You look anxious."
"No wonder," she said, and then she told him of her summons to the Palazzo Braschi, and of the business she saw done there.
There was to be a riot at the meeting at the Coliseum, because, if need be, the Government itself would provoke violence. The object was to kill him, not the people, and if he stayed in Rome until to-morrow night there would be no possibility of escape.
"You must fly," she said. "You are the victim marked out by all these preparations—you, you, nobody but you."
"It is the best news I've heard for days," he said. "If I am the only one who runs a risk...."