XI

As Ave Maria approached, David Rossi became still more agitated. The sky

had darkened, but there was no wind; the air was empty, and he listened

with strained attention for every sound from the staircase and the

street. At length he heard a cab stop at the door, and a moment

afterwards a light hurrying footstep in the outer room seemed to beat

upon his heart.

The door opened and Roma came in quickly, with a scarcely audible

salutation. He saw her with her golden complexion and her large violet

eyes, wearing a black hat and an astrachan coat, but his head was going

round and his pulses were beating violently, and he could not control

his eyes.

"I have come for a minute only," she said. "You received my letter?"

Rossi bent his head.

"David, I want the fulfilment of your promise."

"What promise?"

"The promise to come to me when I stand in need of you. I need you now.

My fountain is practically finished, and to-morrow afternoon I am to

have a reception to exhibit it. Everybody will be there, and I want you

to be present also."

"Is that necessary?" he asked.

"For my purposes, yes. Don't ask me why. Don't question me at all. Only

trust me and come."

She was speaking in a firm and rapid voice, and looking up he saw that

her brows were contracted, her lips were set, her cheeks were slightly

flushed, and her eyes were shining. He had never seen her like that

before. "What is the secret of it?" he asked himself, but he only

answered, after a brief pause:

"Very well, I will be there."

"That's all. I might have written, but I was afraid you might object,

and I wished to make quite certain. Adieu!"

He had only bowed to her as she entered, and now she was going away

without offering her hand.

"Roma," he said, in a voice that sounded choked.

She stopped but did not speak, and he felt himself growing hot all over.

"I'm relieved--so much relieved--to hear that you agree with what I said

in my letter."

"The last--in which you wish me to forget you?"

"It is better so--far better. I am one of those who think that if either

party to a marriage"--he was talking in a constrained way--"entertains

beforehand any rational doubt about it, he is wiser to withdraw, even at

the church door, rather than set out on a life-long voyage under doubtful

auspices."

"Didn't we promise not to speak of this?" she said impatiently. Then

their eyes met for a moment, and he knew that he was false to himself

and that his talk of renunciation was a mockery.

"Roma," he said again, "if you want me in the future you must write."

Her face clouded over.

"For your own sake, you know...."

"Oh, that! That's nothing at all--nothing now."

"But people are insulting me about you, and...."

"Well--and you?"

The colour rushed to his cheeks and he smote the back of a chair with

his clenched fist.

"I tell them...."

"I understand," she said, and her eyes began to shine again. But she

only turned away, saying: "I'm sorry you are angry that I came."

"Angry!" he cried, and at the sound of his voice as he said the word

their love for each other went thrilling through and through them.

The rain had begun to fall, and it was beating with smart strokes on the

window panes.

"You can't go now," he said, "and since you are never to come here again

there is something you ought to hear."

She took a seat immediately, unfastened her coat, and slipped it back on

to her shoulders.

The thick-falling drops were drenching the piazza, and its pavement was

bubbling like a lake.

"The rain will last for some time," said Rossi, looking out, "and the

matter I speak of is one of some urgency, therefore it is better that

you should hear it now."

Taking the pins out of her hat, Roma lifted it off and laid it in her

lap, and began to pull off her gloves. The young head with its glossy

hair and lovely face shone out with a new beauty.

Rossi hardly dared to look at her. He was afraid that if he allowed

himself to do so he would fling himself at her feet. "How calm she is,"

he thought. "What is the meaning of it?"

He went to the bureau by the wall and took out a small round packet.

"Do you remember your father's voice?" he asked.

"That is all I do remember about my father. Why?"

"It is here in this cylinder."

She rose quickly and then slowly sat down again.

"Tell me," she said.

"When your father was deported to the Island of Elba, he was a prisoner

at large, without personal restraint but under police supervision. The

legal term of _domicilio coatto_ is from one year to five, but excuses

were found and his banishment was made perpetual. He saw prisoners come

and go, and in the sealed chamber of his tomb he heard echoes of the

world outside."

"Did he ever hear of me?"

"Yes, and of myself as well. A prisoner brought him news of one David

Rossi, and under that name and the opinions attached to it he recognised

David Leone, the boy he had brought up and educated. He wished to send

me a message."

"Was it about...."

"Yes. The letters of prisoners are read and copied, and to smuggle out

by hand a written document is difficult or impossible. But at length a

way was discovered. Some one sent a phonograph and a box of cylinders to

one of the prisoners, and the little colony of exiled ones used to meet

at your father's house to hear the music. Among the cylinders were

certain blank ones. Your father spoke on to one of them, and when the

time came for the owner of the phonograph to leave Elba, he brought the

cylinder back with him. This is the cylinder your father spoke on to."

With an involuntary shudder she took out of his hands a circular

cardboard-box, marked in print on the outside: "Selections from Faust,"

and in pencil on the inside of the lid: "For the hands of D. L. only--to

be destroyed if Deputy David Rossi does not know where to find him."

The heavy rain had darkened the room, but by the red light of a dying

fire he could see that her face had turned white.

"And this contains my father's voice?" she said.

"His last message."

"He is dead--two years dead--and yet...."

"Can you bear to hear it?"

"Go on," she said, hardly audibly.

He took back the cylinder, put it on the phonograph, wound up the

instrument, and touched the lever. Through the strokes of the rain,

lashing the window like a hundred whips, the whizzing noise of the

machine began.

He was standing by her side, and he felt her hand on his arm.

Then through the sound of the rain and of the phonograph there came a

clear, full voice:

"David Leone--your old friend Doctor Roselli sends you his dying

message...."

The hand on Rossi's arm clutched it convulsively, and, in a choking

whisper, Roma said:

"Wait! Give me one moment."

She was looking around the darkening room as if almost expecting a

ghostly presence.

She bowed her head. Her breath came quick and fast.

"I am better now. Go on," she said.

The whirring noise began again, and after a moment the clear voice came

as before:

"My son, the promise I made when we parted in London I fulfilled

faithfully, but the letter I wrote you never came to your hands. It was

meant to tell you who I was, and why I changed my name. That is too long

a story now, and I must be brief. I am Prospero Volonna. My father was

the last prince of that name. Except the authorities and their spies,

nobody in Italy knows me as Roselli and nobody in England _as_

Volonna--nobody but one, my poor dear child, my daughter Roma."

The hand tightened on Rossi's arm, and his head began to swim.

"Little by little, in this grave of a living man, I have heard what has

happened since I was banished from the world. The treacherous letter

which called me back to Italy and decoyed me into the hands of the

police was the work of a man who now holds my estates as the payment for

his treachery."

"The Baron?"

Rossi had stopped the phonograph.

"Can you bear it?" he said.

The pale young face flushed with resolution.

"Go on," she said.

When the voice from the phonograph began again it was more tremulous and

husky than before.

"After he had betrayed the father, what impulse of fear or humanity

prompted him to take charge of the child, God alone, who reads all

hearts, can say. He went to England to look for her, found her in the

streets to which she had been abandoned by the faithlessness of the

guardians to whom I left her, and shut their mouths by buying them to

the perjury of burying the unknown body of an unfortunate being in the

name of my beloved child."

The hand on Rossi's arm trembled feebly, and slipped down to his own

hand. It was cold as ice. The voice from the phonograph was growing

faint.

"She is now in Rome, living in the name that was mine in Italy, amid an

atmosphere of danger and perhaps of shame. My son, save her from it. The

man who betrayed the father may betray the daughter also. Take her from

him. Rescue her. It is my dying prayer."

The hand in Rossi's hand was holding it tightly, and his blood was

throbbing at his heart.

"David," the voice from the phonograph was failing rapidly, "when this

shall come to your hands the darkness of the grave will be over me....

In my great distress of mind I torture myself with many terrors.... Do

not trifle with my request. But whatever you decide to do ... be gentle

with the child.... I dream of her every night, and send my heart's heart

to her on the swelling tides of love.... Adieu, my son. The end is near.

God be with you in all you do that I did ill or left undone. And if

death's great sundering does not annihilate the memory of those who

remain on earth, be sure you have a helper and an advocate in heaven."

The voice ceased, the whirring of the instrument came to an end, and an

invisible spirit seemed to fade into the air. The pattering of the rain

had stopped, and there was the crackle of cab wheels on the pavement

below. Roma had dropped Rossi's hand, and was leaning forward on her

knees with both hands over her face. After a moment, she wiped her eyes

with her handkerchief and began to put on her hat.

"How long is it since you received this message?" she said.

"On the night you came here first."

"And when I asked you to come to my house on that ... that useless

errand, you were thinking of ... of my father's request as well?"

"Yes."

"You have known all this about the Baron for a month, yet you have said

nothing. _Why_ have you said nothing?"

"You wouldn't have believed me at first, whatever I had said against

him."

"But afterwards?"

"Afterwards I had another reason."

"Did it concern me?"

"Yes."

"And now?"

"Now that I have to part from you I am compelled to tell you what he

is."

"But if you had known that all this time he has been trying to use

somebody against you...."

"That would have made no difference."

She lifted her head, and a look of fire, almost of fierceness, came into

her face, but she only said, with a little hysterical cry, as if her

throat were swelling:

"Come to me to-morrow, David! Be sure you come! If you don't come I

shall never, never forgive you! But you will come! You will! You will!"

And then, as if afraid of breaking out into sobs, she turned quickly and

hurried away.

"She can never fall into that man's hands now," he thought. And then he

lit his lamp and sat down to his work, but the light was gone, and the

night had fallen on him.