"And then?"
"Then Rossi's life in Rome will be at an end. He will be interdicted from all public offices and expelled from Parliament."
"And Bruno?"
"He will be a free man the following morning."
Roma went home dazed and dejected. A letter was waiting for her. It was from the Director of the Roman prisons. Although the regulations stipulated that only relations should visit prisoners, except under special conditions, the Director had no objection to Bruno Rocco's former employer seeing him at the ordinary bi-monthly hour for visitors to-morrow, Sunday afternoon.
At two o'clock next day Roma set off for Regina Cœli.
XV
The visiting-room of Regina Cœli is constructed on the principle of a rat-trap. It is an oblong room divided into three compartments longitudinally, the partition walls being composed of wire and resembling cages. The middle compartment is occupied by the armed warder in charge who walks up and down; the compartment on the prison side is divided into many narrow boxes each occupied by a prisoner, and the compartment on the world side is similarly divided into sections each occupied by a visitor.
When Roma entered this room she was deafened by a roar of voices. Thirty prisoners and as many of their friends were trying to talk at the same time across the compartment in the middle, in which the warder was walking. Each batch of friends and prisoners had fifteen minutes for their interview, and everybody was shouting so as to be heard above the rest.
A feeling of moral and physical nausea took possession of Roma when she was shown into this place. After some minutes of the hellish tumult she had asked to see the Director. The message was taken upstairs, and the Director came down to speak to her.