"One lives," said Roma, with a sigh.
"What is the matter, my dear? You are ill and unhappy."
She eluded the question and said, "You sent for me—what do you wish to say?"
He told her the printer of certain seditious proclamations had been arrested, and in the judicial inquiry preparatory to his trial he had mentioned the name of the person who had employed and paid him.
"You cannot but be aware, my dear, that you have rendered yourself liable to prosecution, and that nothing—nothing whatever—could have saved you from public exposure but the good offices of a powerful friend."
Roma drew her lips tightly together and made no answer.
"But what a situation for a Minister! To find himself ruled by his feelings for a friend, and thus weakened in the eyes of his servants, who ought to have no possible hold on him."
Roma's gloomy face began to be compressed with scorn.
"You have perhaps not realised the full measure of the indignity that might have befallen you. For instance—a cruel necessity—the police would have been making a domiciliary visitation in your apartment at this moment."
Roma made a faint, involuntary cry, and half rose from her seat.