Her slender fingers tightened upon the freezing bars, and once more, in the silent night, her tears flowed down as she looked up at the stars through the prison window.  The new condition of her life sought an expression she had hitherto considered as weak and despicable, and against which she struggled even now.  There was no relief in weeping, it brought her no sense of rest, no respite from the dull consciousness of her situation; and yet she could not restrain the drops that fell so fast upon her hands.  She suffered always, without any intermittence, as people do who have little imagination, with few but strong passions and a constant nature.  There are men and women whose active fancy is able to lend a romantic beauty to misfortune, which gives some pleasure even to themselves, or who can obtain some satisfaction, if they are poets, by expressing their pain in grand or tender language.  There are others to whom sorrow is but a reality, for which all expression seems inadequate.

Corona was such a woman, too strong to suffer little, too unimaginative to suffer poetically.  There are those who might say that she exaggerated the gravity of the position, that, since Giovanni had always been faithful to her, had acknowledged his error and repented of it so sincerely, there was no reason why she should not love him as before.  The answer is very simple.  The highest kind of love not only implies the highest trust in the person loved, but demands it in return; the two conditions are as necessary to each other as body and soul, so that if one is removed from the other, the whole love dies.  Our relations with our fellow-creatures are reciprocal in effect, whatever morality may require in theory, from the commonest intercourse between mere acquaintances to the bond between man and wife.  An honest man will always hesitate to believe another unless he himself is believed.  Humanity gives little, on the whole, unless it expects a return; still less will men continue to give when their gifts have been denounced to them as false, no matter what apology is offered alter the mistake has been discovered.  Corona was very human, and being outwardly cold, she was inwardly more sensitive to suspicion than very expansive women can ever be.  With women who express very readily what they feel, the expression often assumes such importance as to deceive them into believing their passions to be stronger than they are.  Corona had given all, love, devotion, faithfulness, and yet, because appearances had been against her, Giovanni had doubted her.  He had cut the plant down at the very root, and she had nothing more to give.

Faustina moved in her sleep.  Corona softly closed the window and once more lay down to rest.  The hours seemed endless as she listened for the bells.  At last the little room grew gray and she could distinguish the furniture in the gloom.  Then all at once the door opened, and the nun entered, bearing her little lantern and peering over it to try and see whether the occupants of the chamber were awake.  In the shadow behind her Corona could distinguish the figure of a man.