"To me it was a strange and moving spectacle. The mist like a
shroud over the great city, some stars of leaden hue paling out
overhead, the day dawning over the vast square, the wide silence
with the far-off hum of awakening life, the English workmen
stopping to look at us as they went by to their work, and our
company of dark-bearded men, emigrants and exiles, sending their
hearts out in sympathy to their brothers in the south. As I spoke
from the base of the Gordon statue and turned towards St. Martin's
Church, I could fancy I saw your white-haired father on the steps
with his little daughter in his arms.
"I will write again in a day or two, telling you what we are
doing. Meantime I enclose a Proclamation to the People, which I
wish you to get printed and posted up. Take it to old Albert
Pelegrino in the Stamperia by the Trevi. Tell him to mention the
cost and the money shall follow. Call at the Piazza Navona and see
what is happening to Elena. Poor girl! Poor Bruno! And my poor
dear little darling!
"Take care of yourself, my dear one. I am always thinking of you.
It is a fearful thing to have taken up the burden of one who is
branded as an outcast and an outlaw. I cannot help but reproach
myself. There was a time when I saw my duty to you in another way,
but love came like a hurricane out of the skies and swept all
sense of duty away. My wife! my Roma! You have hazarded everything
for me, and some day I will give up everything for you. D. R."
VII
"DEAREST,--Your letter to Sister Angelica arrived safely, and
worked more miracles in her cloistered heart than ever happened to
the 'Blessed Bambino.' Before it came I was always thinking,
'Where is he now? Is he having his breakfast? Or is it dinner,
according to the difference of time and longitude?' All I knew was
that you had travelled north, and though the sun doesn't
ordinarily set in that direction, the sky over Monte Mario used to
glow for my special pleasure like the gates of the New Jerusalem.
"Your letters are so precious that I will ask you not to fill them
with useless things. Don't tell me to love you. The idea! Didn't I
say I should think of you always? I do! I think of you when I go
to bed at night, and that is like opening a jewel-case in the
moonlight. I think of you when I am asleep, and that is like an
invisible bridge which unites us in our dreams; and I think of you
when I wake in the morning, and that is like a cage of song-birds
that sing in my breast the whole day long.