"Do you say that, sir? And after I've insulted you?"
David Rossi held out his hand, and Bruno clasped it.
"I had no right to be angry with you, Bruno, but you are wrong about
Donna Roma. Believe me, dear friend, cruelly, awfully, terribly wrong."
"You think she is a good woman."
"I know she is, and if I said otherwise, I take it back and am ashamed."
"Beautiful! If I could only believe in her as you do, sir. But I've
known her for two years."
"And I've known her for twenty."
"You have?"
"I have. Shall I tell you who she is? She is the daughter of my old
friend in England."
"The one who died in Elba?"
"Yes."
"The good man who found you and fed you, and educated you when you were
a boy in London?"
"That was the father of Donna Roma."
"Then he was Prince Volonna, after all?"
"Yes, and they lied to me when they told me she was dead and buried."
Bruno was silent for a moment, and then in a choking voice he said:
"Why didn't you strike me dead when I said she was deceiving you?
Forgive me, sir!"
"I do forgive you, Bruno, but not for myself--for her."
Bruno turned away with a dazed expression.
"Forget what I said about going to Donna Roma's, sir."
Rossi sat down and took up his pen.
"No, I cannot forget it," he said. "I will not forget it. I will go to
her house no more."
Bruno was silent for a moment, and then he said in a thick voice:
"I understand! God help you, David Rossi. It's a lonely road you mean to
travel."
Rossi drew a long breath and made ready to write.
"Good-night, Bruno."
"Good-night," said Bruno, and the good fellow went out with wet eyes.
II
The night was far gone, and the city lay still, while Rossi replied to
Roma.
"MY DEAR R.,--You have nothing to reproach yourself with in regard
to my poor doings, or tryings-to-do. They were necessary, and if
the penalties had been worse a hundredfold I should not chew the
cud of my bargain now. Besides your wish, I had another motive, a
secret motive, and perhaps, if I were a good Catholic, I should
confess too, although not with a view to penance. Apparently, it
has come out well, and now that it seems to be all over, both your
scheme and mine, now that the wrong I did you is to some extent
undone, and my own object is in some measure achieved, I find
myself face to face with a position in which it is my duty to you
as well as to myself to bring our intercourse to an end.