Even now it never entered his mind to imagine that Corona would condone his offence; he felt sure that she was deeply wounded, and that his next meeting with her would be a terrible ordeal--so terrible, indeed, that he doubted whether he had the courage to meet her at all.
His love was so great, and its object so sacred to him, that he hesitated to conceive himself loved in return; perhaps if he had been able to understand that Corona loved him he would have left Rome for ever, rather than trouble her peace by his presence.
It would have been absolutely different if he had been paying court to Donna Tullia, for instance.

The feeling that he should be justified would have lent him courage, and the coldness in his own heart would have left his judgment free play.

He could have watched her calmly, and would have tried to take advantage of every mood in the prosecution of his suit.

He was a very honourable man, but he did not consider marriages of propriety and convenience as being at all contrary to the ordinary standard of social honour, and would have thought himself justified in using every means of persuasion in order to win a woman whom, upon mature reflection, he had judged suitable to become his wife, even though he felt no real love for her.

That is an idea inherent in most old countries, an idea for which Giovanni Saracinesca was certainly in no way responsible, seeing that it had been instilled into him from his boyhood.