She welcomed Giovanni with a bright smile.  She had not expected him that evening, for he had been with her all the afternoon.  She sprang to her feet and came quickly to meet him.  She almost unconsciously took the morocco case from his hands, not looking at it, and hardly noticing what she did.

“My father has come back.  It is all settled!” cried Giovanni.

“So soon!  He must have flown!” said she, making him sit down.

“Yes, he has never rested, and he has found out all about it.  It is a most extraordinary story.  By the by, he sends you affectionate messages, and begs you to accept these diamonds.  They were my mother’s,” he added, his voice softening and changing.  Corona understood his tone, and perhaps realised, too, how very short the time now was.  She opened the case carefully.

“They are very beautiful; your mother wore them, Giovanni?” She looked lovingly at him, and then bending down kissed the splendid coronet as though in reverence of the dead Spanish woman who had borne the man she loved.  Whereat Giovanni stole to her side, and kissed her own dark hair very tenderly.

“I was to tell you that there are a great many more,” he said, “which my father will offer you on the wedding—­day.”  Then he kneeled down beside her, and raising the crown from its case, set it with both his hands upon her diadem of braids.

“My princess!” he exclaimed.  “How beautiful you are!” He took the great necklace, and clasped it about her white throat.  “Of course,” he said, “you have such splendid jewels of your own, perhaps you hardly care for these and the rest.  But I like to see you with them—­it makes me feel that you are really mine.”

Corona smiled happily, and gently took the coronet from her head, returning it to its case.  She let the necklace remain about her throat.

“You have not told me about your father’s discovery,” she said, suddenly.

“Yes—­I will tell you.”

In a few minutes he communicated to her the details of the journey.  She listened with profound interest.

“It is very strange,” she said.  “And yet it is so very natural.”

“You see it is all Del Ferice’s doing,” said Giovanni.  “I suppose it was really an accident in the first place; but he managed to make a great deal of it.  It is certainly very amusing to find that the last of the other branch is an innkeeper in the Abruzzi.  However, I daresay we shall never hear of him again.  He does not seem inclined to claim his title.  Corona mia, I have something much more serious to say to you to-night.”

“What is it?” she asked, turning her great dark eyes rather wonderingly to his face.

“There is no reason why we should not be married, now—­”

“Do you think I ever believed there was?” she asked, reproachfully.

“No, dear.  Only—­would you mind its being very soon?”

The dark blood rose slowly to her cheek, but she answered without any hesitation.  She was too proud to hesitate.