“He kissed my hand before every one,” replied Corona, whose wrath was slowly gathering as she saw her husband’s determination to prove her guilty.

“There were people in the room,” continued Giovanni in a tone of concentrated anger, “but you thought no one was watching you—­I could see it in your manner and in your eyes.  That same night I came home at one o’clock and you were out.  You had gone out alone with that man, expecting that I would not return so soon—­though it was late enough, too.  You were forced to admit that you were with him, because the porter had seen you and had told me the man was a Zouave.”

“I will tell you the story, since you no longer trust me,” said Corona, proudly.

“I have no doubt you will tell me some very ingenious tale which will explain why, although you left my house alone, with Gouache, you reached the Palazzo Montevarchi alone with Faustina.  But I have not done.  He came here the next day.  You treated him with unexampled rudeness before me.  Half an hour later I found you together in the drawing-room.  He was kissing your hand again.  You were saying you forgave him and giving him that favourite benediction of yours, which you once bestowed upon me under very similar circumstances.  Astrardente was alive and present at that dance in Casa Frangipani.  You have me for a husband now and you have found another man whose heart will beat when you bless him.  It would be almost better to kill you after all.”

“Have you finished?” asked Corona, white with anger.

“Yes.  That letter and that pin—­left while I, poor fool, was waiting for you this afternoon on the Pincio—­those things are my last words.  They close the tale very appropriately.  I wish I did not love you so—­I would not wait for your answer.”

“Do you dare to say you love me?”

“Yes—­though there is no other man alive who would dare so much, who would dare to love such a woman as you are—­for very shame.”

“And I tell you,” answered Corona in ringing tones, “that, although I can prove to you that every word you say against me is an abominable calumny, so that you shall see how basely you have insulted an innocent woman, yet I shall never love you again—­ never, never.  A man who can believe such things, who can speak such things, is worthy of no woman’s love and shall not have mine.  And yet you shall hear me tell the truth, that you may know what you have done.  You say I have wrecked your life and destroyed your happiness.  You have done it for yourself.  As there is a God in Heaven—­”

“Do not blaspheme,” said Giovanni, contemptuously.  “I will hear your story.”