



Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










THE HEART OF ROME

A Tale of the "Lost water"

BY FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD Author of "Cecilia," "Saracinesca," "In the
Palace of the King," Etc.





THE HEART OF ROME






CHAPTER I




The Baroness Volterra drove to the Palazzo Conti in the heart of Rome
at nine o'clock in the morning, to be sure of finding Donna Clementina
at home. She had tried twice to telephone, on the previous afternoon,
but the central office had answered that "the communication was
interrupted." She was very anxious to see Clementina at once, in order
to get her support for a new and complicated charity. She only wanted
the name, and expected nothing else, for the Conti had very little
ready money, though they still lived as if