_ PART SIX. THE ROMAN OF ROME
CHAPTER XIII
"MY DEAR DAVID ROSSI,--All day long I've been carrying your letter round like a reliquary, taking a peep at it in cabs, and even, when I dare, in omnibuses and the streets.
"What you say about Bruno has put me in a fever, and I have written to the Director-General for permission to visit the prison. Even Lawyer Napoleon is of opinion that Bruno is being made a victim of that secret inquisition. No Holy Inquisition was ever more unscrupulous. Lawyer N. says the authorities in Italy have inherited the traditions of a bad regime. To do evil to prevent others from doing it is horrible. But in this case it is doing evil to prevent others from doing good. I am satisfied that Bruno is being tempted to betray you. If I could only take his place! _Would their plots have any effect upon me?_ I should die first.
"And now about my friend. I can hardly hold my pen when I write of her. What you say is so good, so noble. I might have known what you would think, and yet....
"Dearest, how can I go on? Can't you divine what I wish to tell you? Your letter compels me to confess. Come what may, I can hold off no longer. Didn't you guess who my poor friend was? I thought you would remember our former correspondence when you pretended to love somebody else. You haven't thought of it apparently, and that is only another proof--a bitter sweet one this time--of your love and trust. You put me so high that you never imagined that I could be speaking of myself. I was, and my poor friend is my poor self.
"It has made me suffer all along to see what a pedestal of purity you placed me on. The letters you wrote before you told me you loved me, when you were holding off, made me ashamed because I knew I was not worthy. More than once when you spoke of me as so good, I couldn't look into your eyes. I felt an impulse to cry, 'No, no, no,' and to smirch the picture you were painting. Yet how could I do it? What woman who loves a man can break the idol in his heart? She can only struggle to lift herself up to it. That was what I tried to do, and it is not my fault that it is not done.
"I have been much to blame. There were moments when duty should have made me speak. One such moment was before we married. Do you remember that I tried to tell you something? You were kind, and you would not listen. 'The past is past,' you said, and I was only too happy to gloss it over. You didn't know what I wished to say, or you would not have silenced me. I knew, and I have suffered ever since. I _had_ to speak, and you see how I have spoken. And now I feel as if I had tricked you. I have got you to commit yourself to opinions and to a line of conduct. Forgive me! I will not hold you to anything. Take it all back, and I shall have no right to complain.
"Besides, there are features in my own case which I did not present to you in my friend's. One of them was the fear of being found out. Dearest, I must not shield myself behind the sweet excuse you find for me. I _did_ think of the other man. It wasn't that I was afraid that he would intimidate me, and so corrupt my love. Not all the tyrannies of the world could do that now. But if from revenge or a desire to wrest me away from you by making you cast me off he told you his story before I had told you mine! That was a day-long and night-long terror, and now I confess it lest you should think me better than I am.
"Another thing you did not know. Dearest, I would give my life to spare you the explanation, but I must tell you everything. You know who the man is, and it is true before God that he alone was to blame. But my own fault came afterwards. Instead of cutting him off, I continued to be on good terms with him, to take the income he allowed me from my father's estate, and even to think of him as my future husband. And when your speech in the piazza seemed to endanger my prospects I set out to destroy you.
"It is terrible. How can I tell you and not die of shame? Now you know how much I deceived you, and the infamy of my purpose makes me afraid to ask for pardon. To think that I was no better than a Delilah when I met you first! But Heaven stepped in and saved you. How you worked upon me! First, you re-created my father for me, and I saw him as he really was, and not as I had been taught to think of him. Then you gave me my soul, and I saw myself. Darling, do not hate me. Your great heart could not be capable of a cruelty like that if you knew what I suffered.
"Last of all love came, and I wanted to hold on to it. Oh, how I wanted to hold on to it! That was how it came about that I went on and on without telling you. It was a sort of gambling, a kind of delirium. Everything that happened I took as a penance. Come poverty, shame, neglect, what matter? It was only wiping out a sinful past, and bringing me nearer to you. But when at last he who had injured me threatened to injure you _through me_, I was in despair. You could never imagine what mad notions came to me then. I even thought of killing myself, to end and cover up everything. But no, I could not break your heart like that. Besides, the very act would have told you something, and it was terrible to think that when I was dead you might find out all this pitiful story.
"Now you know everything, dearest. I have kept nothing back. As you see, I am not only my poor friend, but some one worse--myself. Can you forgive me? I dare not ask it. But put me out of suspense. Write. Or better still, telegraph. One word--only one. It will be enough.
"I would love to send you my love, but to-night I dare not. I have loved you from the first, and I can never do anything but love you, whatever happens. I think you would forgive me if you could realise that I am in the world only to love you, and that the worst of my offences comes of loving you more than reason or honour itself. Whatever you do, I am yours, and I can only consecrate my life to you.
"It is daybreak, and the cross of St. Peter's is hanging spectral white above the mists of morning. Is it a symbol of hope, I wonder? The dawn is coming up from the south-east. It would travel quicker to the north-west if it loved you as much as I do. I have been writing this letter over and over again all night long. Do you remember the letter you made me burn, the one containing all your secrets? Here is a letter containing mine--but how much meaner and more perilous! Your poor unhappy girl,
ROMA." _