“Oh, Corona, forgive me,” he moaned—­“forgive me!  I so love you!”

Suddenly his grasp relaxed from her hands, and with a groan he fell forward against her knees.

“God knows I forgive you!” cried Corona, the tears starting to her eyes in sudden pity.  She bent down to support him; but as she moved, he fell prostrate upon his face before her.  With a cry of terror she kneeled beside him; with her strong arms she turned his body and raised his head upon her knees.  His face was ghastly white, save where the tinges of paint made a hideous mockery of colour upon his livid skin.  His parted lips were faintly purple, and his hollow eyes stared wide open at his wife’s face, while the curled wig was thrust far back upon his bald and wrinkled forehead.

Corona supported his weight upon one knee, and took his nerveless hand in hers.  An agony of terror seized her.

“Onofrio!” she cried—­she rarely called him by his name—­“Onofrio! speak to me!  My husband!” She clasped him wildly in her arms.  “O God, have mercy!”

Onofrio d’Astrardente was dead.  The poor old dandy, in his paint and his wig and his padding, had died at his wife’s feet, protesting his love for her to the last.  The long averted blow had fallen.  For years he had guarded himself against sudden emotions, for he was warned of the disease at his heart, and knew his danger; but his anger had killed him.  He might have lived another hour while his rage lasted; but the revulsion of feeling, the sudden repentance for the violence he had done his wife, had sent the blood back to its source too quickly, and with his last cry of love upon his lips he was dead.

Corona had hardly ever seen death.  She gently lowered the dead man’s weight till he lay at full length upon the floor.  Then she started to her feet, and drew back against the fireplace, and gazed at the body of her husband.

For fully five minutes she stood motionless, scarcely daring to draw breath, dazed and stupefied with horror, trying to realise what had happened.  There he lay, her only friend, the companion of her life since she had known life; the man who in that very room, but two nights since, had spoken such kind words to her that her tears had flowed—­the tears that would not flow now; the man who but a moment since was railing at her in a paroxysm of rage—­whose anger had melted at her first word of defence, who had fallen at her feet to ask forgiveness, and to declare once more, for the last time, that he loved her!  Her friend, her companion, her husband—­had he heard her answer, that she forgave him freely?  He could not be dead—­it was impossible.  A moment ago he had been speaking to her.  She went forward again and kneeled beside him.

“Onofrio,” she said very gently, “you are not dead—­you heard me?”