"For God's sake, Roma!"
"Promise me!"
"I promise!" he said. "And you?"
"I promise too--I promise that as long as I live, and wherever I am and
whatever becomes of me, I will ... yes, because I cannot help it ... I
will love you to the last."
Saying this in passionate tones, she drew down his head and he met her
kiss with his lips.
"It is our marriage, David. Others are married in church and by the
hand, and with a ring. We are married in our spirits and our souls."
A long time passed, during which they did not speak. The searchlight
flashed in on them again and again with its supernatural eye, and as
often as it did so Rossi looked at her with strange looks of pity and of
love.
Meantime, she cut a lock from her hair, tied it with a piece of ribbon,
and put it in his pocket with his watch. Then she dried her eyes with
her handkerchief and pushed it in his breast.
The night went on, and nothing was to be heard but the chiming of clocks
outside. At length through the silence there came a muffled rumble from
the streets.
"You must go now," she said, and when the next flash came round she
looked up at him with a steadfast gaze, as if trying to gather into her
eyes her last memories of his face.
"Adieu!"
"Not yet."
"It is still dark, but the streets are patrolled and every gate is
closed, and how are you to escape?"
"If the soldiers had wished to take me they could have done so a hundred
times."
"But the city is stirring. Be careful for my sake. Adieu!"
"Roma," said Rossi, "if I do not take you with me it is partly because I
want your help in Rome. Think of the poor people I leave behind me in
poverty and in prison. Think of Elena when she awakes in the morning,
alone with her terrible grief. Some one should be here to represent me
for a time at all events--to take the messages I must send, the
instructions I shall have to give. It will be a dangerous task, Roma, a
task that can only be undertaken by some one who loves me, some one
who...."
"That is enough. Tell me what I can do," she said.
They arranged a channel of correspondence, and then Roma began her
farewells afresh.