“I must,” cried Corona, passionately.  “Unless I love you, I shall die.  I was wrong, too, you shall let me say it.  Was I not mad to do the things I did?  What man would not have suspected?  Would a man be a man at all, if he did not watch the woman he loves?  Would love be love without jealousy when there seems to be cause for it?  Should I have married you, had I thought that you would be so careless as to let me do such things without interfering?  Was it not my fault when I came back that night and would not tell you what had happened?  Was it not madness to ask you to trust me, instead of telling you all?  And yet,” she turned her face away, “and yet, it hurt me so!”

“You shall not blame yourself, Corona.  It was all my fault.”

“Come and sit here, beside me.  There—­take my hand.  Does it tremble?  Do I draw it away?  Am I not glad that it should rest in yours?  Look at me—­am I not glad?  Giovanni—­dear husband—­true love!  Look into my eyes.  Do you not see that I love you?  Why do you shake your head and tremble?  It is true, I tell you.”

Suddenly the forced smile faded from her face, the artificial expression she tried so pathetically to make real, disappeared, and gave place to a look of horror and fear.  She drew back her hand and turned desperately away.

“I am lying, lying—­and to you!” she moaned.  “Oh God! have mercy, for I am the most miserable woman in the world!”

Giovanni sat still, resting his chin upon his hand and staring at the fire.  His hopes had risen for a moment, and had fallen again, if possible more completely than before.  Every line of his strongly-marked face betrayed the despair that overwhelmed him.  And yet he was no longer weak, as he had been the first time.  He was wondering at the hidden depths of Corona’s nature which had so suddenly become visible.  He comprehended the magnitude of a passion which in being extinguished could leave such emotions behind, and he saw with awful distinctness the beauty of what he had lost and the depth of the abyss by which he was separated from it.  Only a woman who had loved to distraction could make such desperate efforts to revive an affection that was dead; only a woman capable of the most lofty devotion could sink her pride and her own agony, in the attempt to make the man she had loved forgive himself.  He could have borne her reproaches more easily than the sight of her anguish, but she would not reproach him.  He could have borne her hatred almost better than such unselfish forgiveness, and yet she had forgiven him.  For the first time in his life he wished that he might die—­he, who loved life so dearly.  Perhaps it would be easier for her to see him dead at her feet than to feel that he must always be near her and that she could not love him.

“It is of no use, dear,” he said, at last.  “I was right.  The old Giovanni is dead.  We must begin our life again.  Will you let me try?  Will you let me do my best to live for you and to raise up a new love in your heart?”