"Holy Father, I wished to speak to you."
"What about, my son?"
"Myself. Now I see that I did wrong to ask for your protection. You thought I was innocent, and there was something I did not tell you. When I said I was guilty before God and man, you did not understand what I meant. Holy Father, I meant that I had committed murder."
The Pope did not answer, and Rossi went on, his voice ringing with the baleful sentiments which possessed him.
"To tell you the truth, Holy Father, I hardly thought of it myself. What I had done was partly in self-defence, and I did not consider it a crime. And then, he whose life I had taken was an evil man, with the devil's dues in him, and I felt no more remorse after killing him than if I had trodden on a poisonous adder. But now I see things differently. In coming here I exposed you to danger at the hands of the State. I ask your pardon, and I beg you to let me go."
"Where will you go to?"
"Anywhere—nowhere—I don't know yet."
The Pope looked at the young face, cut deep with lines of despair, and his heart yearned over it.
"Sit down, my son. Let us think. Though you did not tell me of the assassination, I soon knew all about it.... Partly in self-defence, you say?"
"That is so, but I do not urge it as an excuse. And if I did, who else knows anything about it?"