“By those I love?  Ah no!  Not by him—­by them!” The blood rushed to her white face, and her hand fell on her friend’s shoulder.

Corona heard and knew that the girl was thinking of Anastase.  She wondered vaguely whether the hot-headed soldier artist had learned the news and what he would do when he found that Faustina was lodged in a prison.

“And yet—­perhaps—­oh no!  It is impossible!” Her sweet, low voice broke again, and was lost in passionate sobbing.

For a long time Corona could do nothing to calm her.  The tears might be a relief to the girl’s overwrought faculties, but they were most distressing to hear and see.

“Do you love him very much, dear?” asked Corona, when the paroxysm began to subside.

“I would die for him, and he would die for me,” answered Faustina simply, but a happy smile shone through her grief that told plainly how much dearer to her was he who was left than he who was dead.

“Tell me about him,” said Corona softly.  “He is a friend of mine—­”

“Indeed he is!  You do not know how he worships you.  I think that next to me in the world—­but then, of course, he could not love you—­besides, you are married.”

Corona could not help smiling, and yet there was a sting in the words, of which Faustina could not dream.  Why could not Giovanni have taken this child’s straight-forward, simple view, which declared such a thing impossible—­because Corona was married.  What a wealth of innocent belief in goodness was contained in that idea!  The princess began to discover a strange fascination in finding out what Faustina felt for this man, whom she, Corona, had been suspected of loving.  What could it be like to love such a man?  He was good-looking, clever, brave, even interesting, perhaps; but to love him—­Corona suddenly felt that interest in the analysis of his character which is roused in us when we are all at once brought into the confidence of some one who can tell by experience what we should have felt with regard to a third person, who has come very near to our lives, if he or she had really become a part of our existence.  Faustina’s present pain and sense of danger momentarily disappeared as she was drawn into talking of what absorbed her whole nature, and Corona saw that by leading the conversation in that direction she might hope to occupy the girl’s thoughts.

Faustina seemed to forget her misfortunes in speaking of Gouache, and Corona listened, and encouraged her to go on.  The strong woman who had suffered so much saw gradually unfolded before her a series of pictures, constituting a whole that was new to her.  She comprehended for the first time in her life the nature of an innocent girl’s love, and there was something in what she learned that softened her and brought the moisture into her dark eyes.  She looked at the delicate young creature beside her, seated upon the rough bed, her angelic loveliness standing out against the cold background of the whitewashed