Padre Filippo sighed.  He had long known and understood why Corona had not been allowed to come to him at the most important moment of her life.

“My husband is very kind to me,” she continued in broken tones.  “He loves me in his way, but I do not love him.  That of itself is a great sin.  It seems to me as though I saw but one half of life, and saw it from the window of a prison; and yet I am not imprisoned.  I would that I were, for I should never have seen another man.  I should never have heard his voice, nor seen his face, nor—­nor loved him, as I do love him,” she sobbed.

“Hush, my daughter,” said the old monk, very gently.  “You told me you had never spoken of love; that you were interested in him, indeed, but that you did not know—­”

“I know—­I know now,” cried Corona, losing all control as the passionate tears flowed down.  “I could not say it—­it seemed so dreadful—­I love him with my whole self!  I can never get it out—­it burns me.  O God, I am so wretched!”

Padre Filippo was silent for a while.  It was a terrible case.  He could not remember in all his experience to have known one more sad to contemplate, though his business was with the sins and the sorrows of the world.  The beautiful woman kneeling outside his confessional was innocent—­as innocent as a child, brave and faithful.  She had sacrificed her whole life for her father, who had been little worthy of such devotion; she had borne for years the suffering of being tied to an old man whom she could not help despising, however honestly she tried to conceal the fact from herself, however effectually she hid it from others.  It was a wonder the disaster had not occurred before:  it showed how loyal and true a woman she was, that, living in the very centre and midst of the world, admired and assailed by many, she should never in five years have so much as thought of any man beside her husband.  A woman made for love and happiness, in the glory of beauty and youth, capable of such unfaltering determination in her loyalty, so good, so noble, so generous,—­it seemed unspeakably pathetic to hear her weeping her heart out, and confessing that, after so many struggles and efforts and sacrifices, she had at last met the common fate of all humanity, and was become subject to love.  What might have been her happiness was turned to dishonour; what should have been the pride of her young life was made a reproach.

She would not fall.  The grey-haired monk believed that, in his great knowledge of mankind.  But she would suffer terribly, and it might be that others would suffer also.  It was the consequence of an irretrievable error in the beginning, when it had seemed to the young girl just leaving the convent that the best protection against the world of evil into which she was to go would be the unconditional sacrifice of herself.