longed to him.

"I had brought with me but a loaf of bread, a flask of milk, and one
thing else--I will tell you what that was, by-and-by. I sat by you,
waiting for you to die. When morning came I forced you to drink some
of the milk. The loft was bitterly cold, and I wondered indeed that
you were not dead.

"Towards evening I felt faint with hunger, and was gnawing a piece of
my loaf, when a voice spoke up to me from below. It was a woman's
voice, and I took it at first for Lauretta's--she was the girl, you
remember, who played the confidante's part and such-like. But when I
pulled the plank a little aside and looked down, I saw a girl unknown
to me--until I recognized her for one of those who lived above the
archway at the entrance of Messer' Fazio's court. Lauretta had told
her, swearing her to be secret, and she was here in pity. She called
herself Gioconda; and I bless her, for your sake.

"She fetched me bread, milk, and a little wine. But for her--for
Messer' Fazio came never near us, and the actors, she told me, had
decamped--we should both have perished. The cold lasted for ten
days; I cannot tell how you endured it; but at the end of them I
hoped you might recover, and with that I tried to think of some plan
for escaping from Genoa. The worst was, I had no money. . . ."

The Princess paused, and shivered a little.

"That cold . . . it is in my bones yet. I feel as though the least
touch of it now would kill me . . . and I want to live. Ah, my love,
turn your eyes from me while I tell you what next I did!
The crown . . . it belonged to Corsica. I had denied your right to
it; but you had won it back from dishonour, and I remembered that in
the band of it were jewels, the price of which might save you.
Moreover, the little that kept us from starving came from--those
women; and it was hateful to owe them even for a little bread.
So I felt then. Afterwards--But you shall hear; only turn away your
eyes. I prayed to the Virgin, but my prayers seemed to get no clear
answer. . . . Then I pulled a staple from the wall, and with the
point of it prised out one of the jewels, an amethyst. . . . I had
spoken already to Gioconda. That evening she brought me one of her
dresses, with shoes, stockings, and underskirt; a mirror, too, and
brush and comb, with paints, powders, and black stuff for the
eye-lashes, all in the same bundle, which she passed up through the
floor. I dressed myself, painted my face,