“I would rather do as you think best,” he said at last.

She glanced at him and then looked back at the blazing logs.

“I have told you what I think,” she answered.  “It is for you to judge and to decide.  The whole matter affects you more than it does me.”

“Is it not the same?”

“No.  If you lose the Saracinesca titles and property we shall still be rich enough.  You have a fortune of your own, and so have I. The name is, after all, an affair which concerns you personally.  I should have married you as readily had you been called anything else.”

The reference to the past made Giovanni’s heart leap, and the colour came quickly to his face.  It was almost as though she had said that she would have loved him as well had he borne another name, and that might mean that she loved him still.  But her calmness belied the hasty conclusion he drew from her words.  He thought she looked like a statue, as she lay there in her magnificent rest, her hands folded upon her knees before her, her eyes so turned that he could see only the drooping lids.

“A personal affair!” he exclaimed suddenly, in a bitter tone.  “It was different once, Corona.”

For the first time since they had been talking her face betrayed some emotion.  There was the slightest possible quiver of the lip as she answered.

“Your titles were never anything but a personal affair.”

“What concerns me concerns you, dear,” said Giovanni, tenderly.

“In so much that I am very sorry—­sincerely sorry, when anything troubles you.”  Her voice was kind and gentle, but there was no love in the words.  “Believe me, Giovanni, I would give all I possess to spare you this.”

“All you possess—­is there not a little love left in your all?”

The cry came from his heart.  He took her hand in both of his, and leaned forward towards her.  Her fingers lay passively in his grasp, and the colour did not change in her dark cheeks.  A moment ago there had been in her heart a passionate longing for the past, which had almost betrayed itself, but when he spoke of present love his words had no power to rouse a responsive echo.  And yet she could not answer him roughly, for he was evidently in earnest.  She said nothing, therefore, but left her hand in his.  His love, which had been as fierce and strong as ever, even while he had doubted her faith, began to take new proportions of which he had never dreamt.  He felt like a man struggling with death in some visible and tangible shape.

“Is it all over?  Will you never love me again?” he asked hoarsely.

Her averted face told no tale, and still her fingers lay inert between his broad hands.  She knew how he suffered, and yet she would not soothe him with the delusive hope for which he longed so intensely.

“For God’s sake, Corona, speak to me!  Is there never to be any love again?  Can you never forgive me?”