rt him; but as she moved, he fell
prostrate upon his face before her. With a cry of terror she kneeled
beside him; with her strong arms she turned his body and raised his head
upon her knees. His face was ghastly white, save where the tinges of
paint made a hideous mockery of colour upon his livid skin. His parted
lips were faintly purple, and his hollow eyes stared wide open at his
wife's face, while the curled wig was thrust far back upon his bald and
wrinkled forehead.

Corona supported his weight upon one knee, and took his nerveless hand in
hers. An agony of terror seized her.

"Onofrio!" she cried--she rarely called him by his name--"Onofrio! speak
to me! My husband!" She clasped him wildly in her arms. "O God, have
mercy!"

Onofrio d'Astrardente was dead. The poor old dandy, in his paint and his
wig and his padding, had died at his wife's feet, protesting his love for
her to the last. The long averted blow had fallen. For years he had
guarded himself against sudden emotions, for he was warned of the disease
at his heart, and knew his danger; but his anger had killed him. He might
have lived another hour while his rage lasted; but the revulsion of
feeling, the sudden repentance for the violence he had done his wife, had
sent the blood back to its source too quickly, and with his last cry of
love upon his lips he was dead.

Corona had hardly ever seen death. She gently lowered the dead man's
weight till he lay at full length upon the floor. Then she started to her
feet, and drew back against the fireplace, and gazed at the body of her
husband.

For fully five minutes she stood motionless, scarcely daring to draw
breath, dazed and stupefied with horror, trying to realise what had
happened. There he lay, her only friend, the companion of her life since
she had known life; the man who in that very room, but two nights since,
had spoken such kind words to her that her tears had flowed--the tears
that would not flow now; the man who but a moment since was railing at
her in a paroxysm of rage--whose anger had melted at her first word of
defence, who had fallen at her feet to ask forgiveness, and to declare
once more, for the last time, that he loved her! Her friend, her
companion, her husband--had he heard her answer, that she forgave him
freely? He could not be dead--it was impossible. A moment ago he had been
speaking to her. She went forward again and kneeled beside him.

"Onofrio," she said very gently, "you a