"The Baron is dead. He was a cruel, heartless tyrant, without mercy or
humanity. His death has altered everything, and the load that lay on
Italy has been lifted away. But none the less you did wrong, very, very
wrong, and by the mad act of a moment.... My child! My poor child! God
help you! God help this little lost one!"
He patted the hand that lay in his as if he had been quieting a crying
child.
"My child, I cannot save you from the consequences of your sin. You must
go where I cannot follow you. But since the Holy Father induced you to
make that cruel denunciation--but let us be calm--let us be calm!"
Roma was perfectly calm, but the Pope could barely control himself.
"I see now that we made a mistake. The conspiracies of David Rossi were
not criminal, and his aims were not unrighteous. I have been instructed
on this subject, and now I see everything in a different light. Yes, a
great mistake, although a natural and excusable one, and if that was the
cause and origin of this terrible event, the Holy Father who led you so
far...."
"Your Holiness!"
"Nay, you must not expect too much. It is little I can do. But now that
governments are falling and parliaments are being dissolved, David Rossi
must come back...."
Roma made a cry of joy, and the Pope raised a warning finger.
"Ah, you must never think of that, my child--you must never think of it.
It is a pity, a great pity, but, alas! it cannot be otherwise now. If
your husband is to come back, his name must be kept clean and
unblemished, and you can never rejoin him whatever happens."
Dizzy with a sense of the Pope's awful error, Roma turned away her face.
"But if you tell me that what you did was due to the compulsion that was
put upon you to denounce David Rossi, he must come forward, whatever the
consequences, to defend you and plead for you. He must say to the world
and to your judges: 'It is true that this poor lady has committed a
crime--an awful crime, such as shuts the guilty one out of the fold of
the human family--but she was provoked to it by a falsehood. The dead
man deceived her. He was her betrayer, her assassin, for he tried to
slay her soul. Therefore you will have mercy upon her as you hope for
mercy, you will forgive her as you hope for forgiveness, and in the
peace and penance of some holy convent she will wipe out the past of her
unhappy life as Mary wiped out her sins in the tears with which she
washed her Master's feet.'"