"Roma?... But what a fool I was not to think of it as a thing that might happen! I left her with the dead man. Who was to believe her when she denied that she had killed him?"
"She did not deny it. She avowed it."
"Avowed it? She said that she had...."
The Pope bowed again.
"Then ... then it was ... was it to shield me?"
"Yes."
Rossi's eyes grew moist. He was like another man.
"But the court ... surely no court will believe her."
"She has been tried and sentenced, my son."
"Sentenced? Do you say sentenced? For a crime she did not commit? And to shield me? Holy Father, would you believe that the last words I spoke to that woman ... but she is an angel. The authorities must be mad, though. Did nobody think of me? Didn't it occur to any one that I had been there that night?"