“You may send for Don Giovanni if you please,” she said.  “I have spoken the truth—­if he denies it I can prove it.  If I were you I would spare him the humiliation—­”

A servant entered the room in answer to the bell, and Corona interrupted Donna Tullia’s speech by giving the man her orders.

“Go at once to the Palazzo Saracinesca, and beg Don Giovanni to come here instantly with his father the Prince.  Take the carriage—­it is waiting below.”

The man disappeared, and Corona quietly resumed her seat.  Donna Tullia was silent for a few moments, attempting to control her anger in an assumption of dignity; but soon she broke out afresh, being rendered very nervous and uncomfortable by the Duchessa’s calm manner and apparent indifference to consequences.

“I cannot see why you should expose yourself to such a scene,” said Madame Mayer presently.  “I honestly wished to save you from a terrible danger.  It seems to me it would be quite sufficient if I proved the fact to you beyond dispute.  I should think that instead of being angry, you would show some gratitude.”

“I am not angry,” answered Corona, quietly.  “I am merely giving you an immediate opportunity of proving your assertion and your sanity.”

“My sanity!” exclaimed Donna Tullia, angrily.  “Do you seriously believe—­”

“Nothing that you say,” said Corona, completing the sentence.

Unable to bear the situation, Madame Mayer rose suddenly from her seat, and began to pace the small room with short, angry steps.

“You shall see,” she said, fiercely—­“you shall see that it is all true.  You shall see this man’s face when I accuse him—­you shall see him humiliated, overthrown, exposed in his villany—­the wretch!  You shall see how—­”

Corona’s strong voice interrupted her enemy’s invective in ringing tones.

“Be silent!” she cried.  “In twenty minutes he will be here.  But if you say one word against him before he comes, I will lock you into this room and leave you.  I certainly will not hear you.”

Donna Tullia reflected that the Duchessa was in her own house, and moreover that she was not a woman to be trifled with.  She threw herself into a chair, and taking up a book that lay upon the table, she pretended to read.

Corona remained seated by the fireplace, glancing at her from time to time.  She was strangely inclined to laugh at the whole situation, which seemed to her absurd in the extreme—­for it never crossed her mind to believe that there was a word of truth in the accusation against Giovanni.  Nevertheless she was puzzled to account for Donna Tullia’s assurance, and especially for her readiness to face the man she so calumniated.  A quarter of an hour elapsed in this armed silence—­the two women glancing at each other from time to time, until the distant sound of wheels rolling under the great gate announced that the messenger had returned from the Palazzo Saracinesca, probably conveying Don Giovanni and his father.