Good Friday's Ministerial paper announced in its official column that
late the night before the King, attended by the Minister of the
Interior, had paid a surprise visit to the Mint, which was in the Via
Fondamenta, a lane approached by way of the silent passage which leads
to the lodging of the Canons of St. Peter's. Roma was puzzling over the
inexplicable announcement, when old John, one of Rossi's pensioners,
knocked at her door. His face and his lips were white, and when Roma
offered him money he put it aside impatiently.
"You mustn't think a gold hammer can break the gate of heaven,
Eccellenza," the old man said.
Then he told his story. The King had seen the Pope in secret the night
before, and there was something going on about the Honourable Rossi.
John knew it because his grandson had left Rome that morning for
Chiasso, and another member of the secret police had started for Modane.
If Donna Roma knew where the Honourable was to be found, she had better
tell him not to return to Italy.
"Better be a wood-bird than a cage-bird, you know," the old man
whispered.
Roma thanked him for his news, and then warned him of the risk he ran,
being dependent on his grandson and his grandson's wife.
"That's nothing," he said, "nothing at all _now_."
Last night he had dreamed a dream. He thought he was a strong man again,
with his children about him, and beholden to no one. How happy he had
been! But when he awoke, and found it was not true, and that he was old
and feeble, he felt that he could hear it no longer.
"I'm in the way and taking the food of the children, so it can't last
long, Eccellenza," he said in a tremulous voice, smiling with his
toothless mouth, and nodding slightly as he went away.
In the uneasy depths of Roma's soul only one thing was now certain. Her
husband was in danger, and he must not attempt to cross the frontier.
Yet how was he to be prevented? The difficulty was enormous. If only
Rossi had replied to her letter by telegram, as she had asked him to do,
she might have found some means of communication. At length an idea
occurred to her, and she sat down to write a letter.
"Dearest," she wrote, while her eyes shone with a kind of delirium
and tears trickled down her cheeks, "I am very ill, and as you
cannot come to me I must go to you. Don't think me too weak and
womanish, after all my solemn promises to be so strong and brave.
But I can only live by love, dearest, and your absence is more
than I can bear. You will think I ought to be content with your
letters, and certainly they have been very sweet and dear to me;
but they are so few, and they come at such long intervals, and now
they seem to have stopped altogether. Perhaps at the bottom of my
selfish heart, too, I think your letters might be a wee bit more
lover-like, but then men don't write real love letters, and nearly
every woman would confess, if she told the truth, and she is a
little disappointed in that regard.
"I know my husband has other things to think about, great things,
high and noble aims and objects, but I am only a woman in spite of
my loud pretences, and I must be loved, or I shall die. Not that I
am afraid of dying, because I know that if I die I shall be with
you in a moment, and this cruel separation will be at an end. But
I want to live, and I'm certain I shall begin to feel better after
I have passed a few moments at your side. So I shall pack up
immediately and start away on the wings of the morning.
"Don't be alarmed if you find me looking pale and thin and old and
ugly. How could I be anything else when the particular world I
live in has been sunless all these weeks? I know your work is very
pressing, especially now when so many things are happening; but
you will put it aside for a little while, won't you, and take me
up into the Alps somewhere, and nurse me back to health and
happiness? Fancy! We shall be boy and girl again, as in the days
when you used to catch butterflies for me, and then look sad when,
like a naughty child, I scrunched them!
"_Au revoir_, dearest. I shall fall into your hands nearly as soon
as this letter. I tremble to think you may be angry with me for
following you and interrupting your work. If you show it in your
face I shall certainly expire. But you will be good to your poor
pilgrim of love and comfort and strengthen her. All the time you
have been away she has never forgotten you for a moment--no, not
one waking moment. An ordinary woman who loved an ordinary man
would not tell him this, but you are not ordinary, and if I am I
don't care a pin to pretend.
"Expect me, then, by the fastest train leaving Rome to-morrow
morning, and don't budge from Paris until I arrive.
"ROMA."
The strain of this letter, with its conscious subterfuge and its
unconscious truth, put Roma into a state of fever; and when she had
finished it and sent it to the post, her head was light, and she was
aware for the first time that she was really ill.
The deaf old woman, who helped her to pack, talked without ceasing of
Rossi and Bruno and Elena and little Joseph, and finally of the King and
his intended jubilee.
"I don't take no notice of Governments, Signora. It's the same as it
used to be in the old days. One Pope died, and his soul went into the
next. First an ugly Pope, then a handsome one, but the soul was the same
in all. Wet soup or dry--that's all I trouble about now; and I don't
care who gets the taxes so long as I can pay.... What do you say,
Tommaso?"
The Garibaldian had come upstairs smiling and winking, and holding out a
letter. "From Trinità de' Monti," he whispered. Flushing crimson and
trembling visibly, Roma took the letter out of the old man's hands with
as much apprehension as if he had tried to deal her a blow, and went off
to her room.
"What do I say, Francesca? I say it's a good thing to be a Christian in
these days, and that's why I always carry a sharp knife and a rosary."