"I can never forget and I don't want to be great. I only want to be good. Leave me!"
"You are good. You have always been good. What happened was my fault alone, and you have nothing to reproach yourself with. I found you growing up to be a great woman, and passing out of my legal control, while I was bound down to a poor, helpless, living corpse. Some day you would meet a younger, freer man, and you would be lost to me for good. Wasn't it human to try to hold you to me until the time came when I could claim you altogether? And if meanwhile this man has interposed...."
He pointed to the bust on the pedestal. She looked up at it, and then dropped her head.
"Put the man out of your mind, my dear, and all will be well. Probably he is in the hands of the authorities already. God grant it may be so! No trouble about his arrest this time! It cannot be complicated by the danger of scandal. Nobody else's name and character will be concerned in it. And if it serves to dispose of a dangerous man and a subversive politician, I am willing to let everything else sleep."
He paused a moment, and then added in his most incisive accents: "But if not, the law must take its course, and Roma Roselli must complete what Roma Volonna has begun."
At that moment Felice's dark form stood against the light in the open door.
"Commendatore Angelelli and Charles Minghelli, Excellency."
As the Baron went back to the drawing-room Roma returned to the window. Scales of snow adhered to the glass, and it was difficult to see anything outside. But the masses of shadow and sheets of light were gone, and the city lay in utter darkness. The sobbing sounds, the crackle of musketry and the rumble of thunder were all gone, and the air was empty and void.
At one moment there was a soft patter as of a flock of sheep passing under the window in the darkness. It was a company of riflemen going at a quick march over the snow, with torches and lanterns.
Voices came from the next room, and Roma found herself listening.