"David Rossi?" he repeated in a husky voice.
Roma began to tremble. "Yes," she faltered.
"David Rossi, the Revolutionary?"
"Indeed no, your Holiness, he is not that."
"But, my child, my child, he is the founder of a revolutionary society which this very day the Holy Father has condemned."
He walked across the room and she rose to her feet and looked after him.
"One of the men who are conspiring against the peace of the Church—banded together to fight the Church and its head."
"Don't say that, your Holiness. He is religious, deeply religious, and far more an enemy of the Government and the King."
She began to talk wildly, almost aimlessly, trying to defend Rossi at all costs.
"Holy Father," she said, "shall I tell you a secret? There is nobody else in the world to whom I could tell it, but I can tell it to you. My husband is now in England organising a great scheme among the exiles and refugees of Italy. What it is I don't know, but he has told me that it will lead to the conquest of the country and the downfall of the throne. Whether it is to be a conspiracy in the ordinary sense, or a constitutional plan of campaign, he has not said, but everything tells me that it is directed against the politics of Rome, and not against its religion, and is intended to overthrow the King, and not the Pope."