ccused her of the past, and seemed to make the dangers of mere living
yawn beside her path at every step,--all this would be terrible to bear,
but by God's help she would bear it to the end.

But now a new horror seized her, and terrified her beyond measure. This
rumour of a duel--a mere word dropped carelessly in conversation by a
thoughtless acquaintance--called up to her sudden visions of evil to
come. Surely, howsoever she might struggle against love and beat it
roughly to silence in her breast, it was not wrong to fear danger for
Giovanni,--it could not be a sin to dread the issue of peril when it was
all so very near to her. It might perhaps not be true, for people in the
world are willing to amuse their empty minds with empty tales,
acknowledging the emptiness. It could not be true; she had seen Giovanni
but a moment before--he would have given some hint, some sign.

Why--after all? Was it not the boast of such men that they could face the
world and wear an indifferent look, at times of the greatest anxiety and
danger? But, again, if Giovanni had been involved in a quarrel so serious
as to require the arbitrament of blood, some rumour of it would have
reached her. She had talked with many men that night, and with some
women--gossips all, whose tongues wagged merrily over the troubles of
friend, or foe, and who would have battened upon anything so novel as a
society duel, as a herd of jackals upon the dead body of one of their
fellows, to make their feast off it with a light heart. Some one of all
these would have told her; the quarrel would have been common property in
half an hour, for somebody must have witnessed it.

It was a consolation to Corona to reflect upon the extreme improbability
of the story; for when the diplomatist was gone, her husband dwelt upon
it--whether because he could not conceal his unsatisfied curiosity, or
from other motives, it was hard to tell.

Astrardente led his wife from the supper-table through the great rooms,
now almost deserted, and past the wide doors of the hall where the
cotillon was at its height. They paused a moment and looked in, as
Giovanni had done a quarter of an hour earlier. It was a magnificent
scene; the lights flashed back from the jewels of fair women, and surged
in the dance as starlight upon rippling waves. The air was heavy with the
odour of the countless flowers that filled the deep recesses of the
windows, and were distributed in hundreds of nosegays for