"That's nothing," Bruno interrupted. "They're like brother and sister, I
tell you."
The Public Prosecutor went on reading: "'I continue to be overwhelmed with grief for the death of our poor
little Joseph.'"
"That's right! That's David Rossi. He loved the boy the same as if he
had been his own son. Go on."
"'... Our child--your child--my child, Elena.'"
"Nothing wrong there. Don't try to make mischief of that," cried Bruno.
"'But now that the boy is gone, and Bruno is in prison, perhaps for
years, the obstacles must be removed which have hitherto prevented you
from joining your life to mine and living for me, as I have always lived
for you. Come to me then, my dear one, my beloved....'"
Here Bruno, who had been stepping forward at every word, snatched the
letter out of the Public Prosecutor's hand.
"Stop that! Don't go reading out of the back of your head," he cried.
No one protested, everybody felt that whatever he did this injured man
must be left alone. Roma felt a roaring in her ears, and for some
minutes she could scarcely command herself. In a vague way she was
conscious of the same struggle in her own heart as was going on in the
heart of Bruno. This, then, was what the Baron referred to when he spoke
of Rossi being untrue to her, and of the proof of his disloyalty in his
own handwriting.
Bruno, who was running his eyes over the letter, read parts of it aloud
in a low husky voice: "'And now that the boy is gone and Bruno is in prison ... perhaps for
years ... the obstacles must be removed....'"
He stopped, looked up, and stared about him. His face had undergone an
awful change. Then he returned to the letter, and in jerky sentences he
read again: "'Come to me then ... my dear one ... my beloved....'"
Until that moment an evil spirit in Roma had been saying to her, in
spite of herself: "Can it be possible that while you have been going
through all those privations for his sake he has been consoling himself
with another woman?" Impossible! The letter was a manifest imposture.
She wouldn't believe a word of it.
But Bruno was still in the toils of his temptation. "Look here," he
said, lifting a pitiful face. "What with the bread and water and the
lashes I don't know that my head isn't light, and I'm fancying I see
things...."