web and woof of life’s loom, this great machinery that worked and groaned and rolled endlessly upon its wheels without producing any more result than the ceaseless turning of a prison treadmill?  But there was no way out of life now; there was no escape, as there was also no prospect of relief, from care and anxiety.  There was no reason why Giovanni should go away—­no reason either why Corona should ever love him less.  She belonged to a class of women, if there are enough of them to be called a class, who, where love is concerned, can feel but one impression, which becomes in their hearts the distinctive seal and mark of their lives, for good or for evil.  Corona was indeed so loyal and good a woman, that the strong pressure of her love could not abase her nobility, nor put untruth where all was so true; but the sign of her love for Giovanni was upon her for ever.  The vacant place in her heart had been filled, and filled wholly; the bulwark she had reared against the love of man was broken down and swept away, and the waters flowed softly over its place and remembered it not.  She would never be the same woman again, and it was bitter to her to feel it:  for ever the face of Giovanni would haunt her waking hours and visit her dreams unbidden,—­a perpetual reproach to her, a perpetual memory of the most desperate struggle of her life, and more than a memory—­the undying present of an unchanging love.

She was quite sure of herself in future, as she also trusted sincerely in Giovanni’s promise.  There should be no moment of weakness, no word should ever fall from her lips to tempt him to a fresh outbreak of passionate words and acts; her life should be measured in the future by the account of the dangers past, and there should be no instant of unguarded conduct, no hour wherein even to herself she would say it was sweet to love and to be loved.  It was indeed not sweet, but bitter as death itself, to feel that weight at her heart, that constant toiling effort in her mind to keep down the passion in her breast.  But Corona had sacrificed much; she would sacrifice this also; she would get strength by her prayers and courage from her high pride, and she would smile to all the world as she had never smiled before.  She could trust herself, for she was doing the right and trampling upon the wrong.  But the suffering would be none the less for all her pride; there was no concealing it—­it would be horrible.  To meet him daily in the world, to speak to him and to hear his voice, perhaps to touch his hand, and all the while to smile coldly, and to be still and for ever above suspicion, while her own burning consciousness accused 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.