XV
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.