"Why so, my child?"
"Because I don't know where he is, and I shouldn't know where to find
him. In his last letter he said it was better I should not know."
"Then he has cut himself off from you entirely?"
"Entirely. I am to see him next in Rome."
"And meantime, that he may not run the risk of being traced by his
enemies, he has stopped all channels of communication with his friends?"
"Yes."
The Pope's face whitened visibly, and an inward voice said to him, "This
is God's hand. Death is waiting for the man in Rome, and he is walking
blindly on to it."
The weary eyes looked with compassion on Roma's quivering face. "There's
no help for it," thought the Pope.
"Suppose, my child ... suppose it were within your power to hinder evil
consequences, would you do it?"
"I am a woman, Holy Father. What can a woman do to hinder anything?"
"In the history of nations it has sometimes happened that a woman has
been able to save life and protect society by raising a little hand like
this."
The Pope lifted Roma's quivering fingers from the table.
"If there is anything I can do, your Holiness, without breaking my
promise or betraying my husband...."
"It is a terrible ordeal, my child. For a wife, God knows how terrible."
"No matter! If it will save my husband.... Tell me, your Holiness."
He told her the proposal of the Prime Minister and the promise of the
King. His voice vibrated. He was like a man who was wounding himself at
every word. She looked at him until he had finished, without ability to
speak.
"You ask me to denounce my husband?"
"It is the only way to save him, my daughter."
She looked round the room with helpless eyes, full of a dumb appeal for
mercy or the chance of escape.
"Holy Father," she said in a choking voice, "that is what his enemies
have been asking me to do all this time, and because I have refused they
have persecuted me with poverty and shame. And now that I come to you
for refuge and shelter, thinking your fatherly arms will protect me,
you ... even you...."
She broke off as by a sudden thought, and said: "But it is impossible.
He is my husband, therefore I cannot witness against him."
"My heart bleeds for you, my child, and I am ashamed to gainsay you. But
an oath is not necessary to a denunciation, and if it were so the law of
this unchristian country would not recognise you as Rossi's wife."