"If you had received my letters addressed to England...."
"Letters? What matter about letters now. Don't you understand, dear?
This gentleman says that before you married me you ... had already
belonged to him. That's what he means, and it's false, isn't it?"
"My mouth is closed. If I could say anything one way or other...."
"Yes or no--that is all that is necessary."
Roma looked up at him with a pleading expression, but seeing nothing in
his face except the magistrate who was interrogating her, she turned her
back and hung her head, and cried like a helpless child.
Rossi laid hold of her arm, twisted her about, and looked into her eyes.
"Crying, Roma? You don't mean to tell me that I am to believe what the
man says? Deny it! For God's sake deny it!"
"I ... I cannot ... I cannot speak," she stammered, and then there was a
dead silence.
When Rossi spoke again his face was dark as a thundercloud, and his
voice hoarse as a raven's.
"If that is so, there is nothing more to say."
She looked up at him with a pathetic remonstrance, but he met her eyes
with the gaze of a relentless judge who had tried and condemned her.
"I was not to blame, David--I swear before God I was not."
"Yet you allowed me to go on believing that falsehood. The woman who
could do a thing like that could do anything. She could pretend to be
poor, pretend to be tempted, pretend...."
"David, what are you saying?"
Rossi broke into a peal of mad laughter.
"Saying? That you have deceived me from the beginning, when you
undertook to betray me to your master and paramour."
"David!"
She tried to protest, but he bore her down with a laugh of scorn, and
then wheeled round on the Baron, who had been standing in silence behind
them.
"That's why you are here to-night, I suppose. You didn't expect to be
disturbed, did you? You didn't expect to see me. You thought I was
stowed away in a cell, and you could meet in safety.... Oh, my brain! my
brain! I shall go mad!"
"It isn't true," cried Roma. And turning to the Baron with flame in her
eyes she said, "Tell him it isn't true. You know it isn't true."
"True?" Again the Baron tried to laugh. "Of course it's true. Every word
the man has uttered is true. Don't ask me to lie to him as you have done
from first to last." At that Rossi's mad laughter stopped suddenly, and
he stepped up to the Baron with fury in his face.