were planted on the other side of the desolate grass-grown square, along the old wall that stood there, at that time, like a fortification between the Termini and the distant city.  Below the window the sentry tramped slowly up and down in his beat, his steps alone breaking the intense stillness of the winter night.  Corona realised that she was in a prison.  There was something in the discomfort which was not repugnant to her, as she held the grating in her fingers and let the cold air blow upon her face.

After all, she thought, her life would seem much the same in such a place, in a convent, perhaps, where she could be alone all day, all night, for ever.  She could not be more unhappy behind those bars than she had often been in the magnificent palaces in which her existence had been chiefly passed.  Nothing gave her pleasure, nothing interested her, nothing had the power to distract her mind from the aching misery that beset it.  She said to herself a hundred times a day that such apathy was unworthy of her, and she blamed herself when she found that even the loss of the great Saracinesca suit left her indifferent.  She did no good to herself and none to any one else, so far as she could see, unless it were good to allow Giovanni to love her, now that she no longer felt a thrill of pleasure at his coming nor at the sound of his voice.  At least she had been honest.  She could say that, for she had not deceived him.  She had forgiven him, but was it her fault if he had destroyed that which he now most desired?  Was it her fault that forgiveness did not mean love?  Her suffering was not the selfish pain of wounded vanity, for Giovanni’s despair would have healed such a wound by showing her the strength of his passion.  There was no resentment in her heart, either, for she longed to love him.  But even the habit of loving was gone, broken away and forgotten in the sharp agony of an hour.  She had done her best to bring it back, she had tried to repeat phrases that had once come from her heart with the conviction of great joy, each time they had been spoken.  But the words were dead and meant nothing, or if they had a meaning they told her of the change in herself.  She was willing to argue against it, to say again and again that she had no right to be so changed, that there had been enough to make any man suspicious, that she would have despised him had he overlooked such convincing evidence.  Could a man love truly and not have some jealousy in his nature?  Could a man have such overwhelming proof given him of guilt in the woman he adored and yet show nothing, any more than if she had been a stranger?  But the argument was not satisfactory, nor conclusive.  If human ills could be healed by the use of logic, there would long since have been no unhappiness left in the world.  Is there anything easier than to deceive one’s self when one wishes to be deceived?  Nothing, surely, provided that the inner reality of ourselves which we call our hearts consents to the deception.  But if it will not consent, then there is no help in all the logic that has been lavished upon the philosophy of a dozen ages.