“I know you will think that I have no tact,” Giovanni observed with considerable justice.

Corona could not repress a smile at the remark, which expressed most exactly what she herself was thinking.

“Frankly—­I think it would be better to leave things alone.  Do you not think so, too?”

“How coolly you say that!” exclaimed Giovanni.  “It is so easy for you—­so hard for me.  I would do anything you asked, and you will not ask anything, because you would make any sacrifice rather than accept one from me.  Did you ever really love me, Corona?  Is it possible that love can be killed in a day, by a word?  I wonder whether there is any woman alive as cold as you are!  Is it anything to you that I should suffer as I am suffering, every day?”

“You cannot understand—­”

“No—­that is true.  I cannot understand.  I was base, cowardly, cruel—­I make no defence.  But if I was all that, and more too, it was because I loved you, because the least suspicion drove me mad, because I could not reason, loving you as I did, any more than I can reason now.  Oh, I love you too much, too wholly, too foolishly!  I will try and change and be another man—­so that I may at least look at you without going mad!”

He rose to his feet and went towards the door.  But Corona called him back.  The bitterness of his words and the tone in which they were spoken hurt her, and made her realise for a moment what he was suffering.

“Giovanni—­dear—­do not leave me so—­I am unhappy, too.”

“Are you?” He had come to her side and stood looking down into her eyes.

“Wretchedly unhappy.”  She turned her face away again.  She could not help it.

“You are unhappy, and yet I can do nothing.  Why do you call me back?”

“If I only could, if I only could!” she repeated in a low voice.

There was silence for a few seconds, during which Giovanni could hear his heart beat loudly and irregularly.

“If I could but move you a little!” he said at last, almost inaudibly.  “If I could do anything, suffer anything for you—­”

She shook her head sorrowfully and then, as though afraid that she had given him pain, she took his hand and pressed it affectionately—­affectionately, not lovingly.  It was as cold as ice.  He sighed and once more turned away.  Just then the door opened, and old Pasquale appeared, his face pale with fright.

“Eccellenza, a note, and the man says that Prince Montevarchi has just been murdered, and that the note is from Donna Faustina, and the police are in the Palazzo Montevarchi, and that the poor princess is dying, and—­”

Corona had risen quickly with a cry of astonishment.  Giovanni had taken the letter and stood staring at the servant as though he believed that the man was mad.  Then he glanced at the address and saw that it was for his wife.

“Faustina is accused of the murder!” she exclaimed.  “I must go to her at once.  The carriage, Pasquale, instantly!”