had said it; she would be free.  They say that men who have been long confined in a dungeon become indifferent, and when turned out upon the world would at first gladly return to their prison walls.  Liberty is in the first place an instinct, but it will easily grow to be a habit.  Corona had renounced all thought of freedom five years ago, and in the patient bowing of her noble nature to the path she had chosen, she had attained to a state of renunciation like that of a man who has buried himself for ever in an order of Trappists, and neither dreams of the freedom of the outer world, nor desires to dream of it.  And she had grown fond of the aged dandy and his foolish ways—­ways which seemed foolish because they were those of youth grafted upon senility.  She had not known that she was fond of him, it is true; but now that he spoke of dying, she felt that she would weep his loss.  He was her only companion, her only friend.  In the loyal determination to be faithful to him, she had so shut herself from all intimacy with the world that she had not a friend.  She kept women at a distance from her, instinctively dreading lest in their careless talk some hint or comment should remind her that she had married a man ridiculous in their eyes; and with men she could have but little intercourse, for their society was dangerous.  No man save Giovanni Saracinesca had for years put himself in the light of a mere acquaintance, always ready to talk to her upon general subjects, studiously avoiding himself in all discussions, and delicately flattering her vanity by his deference to her judgment.  The other men had generally spoken of love at the second meeting, and declared themselves devoted to her for life at the end of a week:  she had quietly repulsed them, and they had dropped back into the position of indifferent acquaintances, going in search of other game, after the manner of young gentlemen of leisure.  Giovanni alone had sternly maintained his air of calmness, had never offended her simple pride of loyalty to Astrardente by word or deed; so that, although she felt and dreaded her growing interest in him, she had actually believed that he was nothing in her life, until at last she had been undeceived and awakened to the knowledge of his fierce passion, and being taken unawares, had nearly been carried off her feet by the tempest his words had roused in her own breast.  But her strength had not utterly deserted her.  Years of supreme devotion to the right, of honest and unwavering loyalty, neither deceiving her conscience on the one hand with the morbid food of a fictitious religious exaltation, nor, upon the other, sinking to a cynical indifference to inevitable misery; days of quiet and constant effort; long hours of thoughtful meditation upon the one resolution of her life,—­all this had strengthened the natural force of her character, so that, when at last the great trial had come, she had not yielded, but had conquered once and for ever, in the very moment