She will perhaps blame him for her failure, but he will defend himself, never fear; he will make her marry him." "I wish they would marry and go away," said Corona to whom the very name of Del Ferice was abhorrent, and who detested Donna Tullia almost as heartily.

Corona was a very good and noble woman, but she was very far from that saintly superiority which forgets to resent injuries.

Her passions were eminently human, and very strong.

She had struggled bravely against her overwhelming love for Giovanni; and she had so far got the mastery of herself, that she would have endured to the end if her husband's death had not set her at liberty.

Perhaps, too, while she felt the necessity of fighting against that love, she attained for a time to an elevation of character which would have made such personal injuries as Donna Tullia could inflict seem insignificant in comparison with the great struggle she sustained against an even greater evil.