face, your sweet small hands, your queenly ways, the light of
your eyes, and the words of your lips--all of you, body and soul, I love.
I would I might die now, for you know it, even if you will not
understand--"

He moved a step nearer to her, stretching out his hands as he spoke.
Corona trembled convulsively, and her lips turned white in the torture of
temptation; she leaned far back against the green leaves, staring wildly
at Giovanni, held as in a vice by the mighty passions of love and fear.
Having yielded her ears to his words, they fascinated her horribly. He,
poor man, had long lost all control of himself. His resolutions, long
pondered in the solitude of Saracinesca, had vanished like unsubstantial
vapours before a strong fire, and his heart and soul were ablaze.

"Do not look at me so," he said almost tenderly. "Do not look at me as
though you feared me, as though you hated me. Can you not see that it is
I who fear you as well as love you, who tremble at your coldness, who
watch for your slightest kind look? Ah, Corona, you have made me so
happy!--there is no angel in all heaven but would give up his Paradise to
change for mine!"

He had taken her hand and pressed it wildly to his lips. Her eyelids
drooped, and her head fell back for one moment. They stood so very near
that his arm had almost stolen about her slender waist, he almost thought
he was supporting her.

Suddenly, without the least warning, she drew herself up to her full
height, and thrust Giovanni back to her arm's length strongly, almost
roughly.

"Never!" she said. "I am a weak woman, but not so weak as that. I am
miserable, but not so miserable as to listen to you. Giovanni
Saracinesca, you say you love me--God grant it is not true! but you say
it. Then, have you no honour, no courage, no strength? Is there nothing
of the man left in you? Is there no truth in your love, no generosity in
your heart? If you so love me as you say you do, do you care so little
what becomes of me as to tempt me to love you?"

She spoke very earnestly, not scornfully nor angrily, but in the
certainty of strength and right, and in the strong persuasion that the
headstrong man would hear and be convinced. She was weak no longer, for
one desperate moment her fate had trembled in the balance, but she had
not hesitated even then; she had struggled bravely, and her brave soul
had won the great battle. She had been weak the other day at the theatre,
in letting herse