“I am not trifling with you,” returned Donna Tullia.  “I am imploring you to think before you act, before you marry Don Giovanni.  You cannot think that I would venture to intrude upon you without the strongest reasons.  I am in earnest.”

“Then, in heaven’s name, speak out!” cried Corona, losing all patience.  “I presume that if this is a warning, you have some grounds, you have some accusation to make against Don Giovanni.  Have the goodness to state what you have to say, and be brief.”

“I will,” said Donna Tullia, and she paused a moment, her face growing red with excitement, and her blue eyes sparkling disagreeably.  “You cannot marry Don Giovanni,” she said at length, “because there is an insurmountable impediment in the way.”

“What is it?” asked Corona, controlling her anger.

“He is already married!” hissed Donna Tullia.

Corona turned a little pale, and started back.  But in an instant her colour returned, and she broke into a low laugh.

“You are certainly insane,” she said, eyeing Madame Mayer suspiciously.  It was not an easy matter to shake her faith in the man she loved.  Donna Tullia was disappointed at the effect she had produced.  She was a clever woman in her way, but she did not understand how to make the best of the situation.  She saw that she was simply an object of curiosity, and that Corona seriously believed her mind deranged.  She was frightened, and, in order to help herself, she plunged deeper.

“You may call me mad, if you please,” she replied, angrily.  “I tell you it is true.  Don Giovanni was married on the 19th of June 1863, at Aquila, in the Abruzzi, to a woman called Felice Baldi—­whoever she may have been.  The register is extant, and the duplicate of the marriage certificate.  I have seen the copies attested by a notary.  I tell you it is true,” she continued, her voice rising to a harsh treble; “you are engaged to marry a man who has a wife—­a peasant woman—­somewhere in the mountains.”

Corona rose from her seat and put out her hand to ring the bell.  She was pale, but not excited.  She believed Donna Tullia to be insane, perhaps dangerous, and she calmly proceeded to protect herself by calling for assistance.

“Either you are mad, or you mean what you say,” she said, keeping her eyes upon the angry woman before her.  “You will not leave this house except in charge of my physician, if you are mad; and if you mean what you say, you shall not go until you have repeated your words to Don Giovanni Saracinesca himself,—­no, do not start or try to escape—­it is of no use.  I am very sudden and violent—­beware!”

Donna Tullia bit her red lip.  She was beginning to realise that she had got herself into trouble, and that it might be hard to get out of it.  But she felt herself strong, and she wished she had with her those proofs which would make her case good.  She was so sanguine by nature that she was willing to carry the fight to the end, and to take her chance for the result.