Corona stood quite still while he spoke.  She could not realise that he paid no attention whatever to her story, save to despise her the more for having implicated Faustina.  It was inconceivable to her that all the circumstances should not now be as clear to him as they were to herself.  From the state of absolute innocence she could not transfer herself in a moment to the comprehension of all he had suffered, all he had thought, and all he had recalled before accusing her.  Even had that been possible, her story seemed to her to give a perfectly satisfactory explanation of all his suspicions.  She was wounded, indeed, so deeply that she knew she could never recover herself entirely, but it did not strike her as possible that all she had said should produce no effect at all.  And yet she knew his look and his ways, and recognised in the tone of his voice the expression of a determination which it would be hard indeed to change.  He still believed her guilty, and he was going to take her away to the dismal loneliness of the mountains for an indefinite time, perhaps for ever.  She had not a relation in the world to whom she could appeal.  Her mother had died in her infancy; her father, for whom she sacrificed herself in marrying the rich old Duke of Astrardente, was dead long ago.  She could turn to no one, unless it were to Prince Saracinesca himself—­and Giovanni warned her not to go to his father.  She stood for some moments looking fixedly at him as though trying to read his thoughts, and he returned her gaze with unflinching sternness.  The position was desperate.  In a few hours she would be where there would be no possibility of defence or argument, and she knew the man’s character well enough to be sure that where proof failed entreaty would be worse than useless.  At last she came near to him and almost gently laid her hand upon his arm.

“Giovanni,” she said, quietly, “I have loved you very tenderly and very truly.  I swear to you upon our child that I am wholly innocent.  Will you not believe me?”

“No,” he answered, and the little word fell from his lips like the blow of a steel hammer.  His eyes did not flinch; his features did not change.

“Will you not ask some one who knows whether I have not spoken the truth?  Will you not let me write—­or write yourself to those two, and ask them to come here and tell you their story?  It is much to ask of them, but it is life or death to me and they will not refuse.  Will you not do it?”

“No, I will not.”

“Then do what you will with me, and may God forgive you, for I cannot.”

Corona turned from him and crossed the room.  There was a cushioned stool there, over which hung a beautiful crucifix.  Corona knelt down, as though not heeding her husband’s presence, and buried her face in her hands.