“Of course it is not true that Saracinesca is to marry Madame Mayer...” were the words she read.  But that was all.  There chanced to have been just room for the sentence at the foot of the page, and by the time her friend had turned over the leaf, she had already forgotten what she had written, and was running on with a different idea.  It seemed as though Corona were haunted by Giovanni at every turn; but she had not reached the end yet, for one letter still remained.  She tore open the envelope, and found that the contents consisted of a few lines penned in a small and irregular hand, without signature.  There was an air of disguise about the whole, which was unpleasant; it was written upon a common sort of paper, and had come through the city post.  It ran as follows:—­

“The Duchessa d’Astrardente reminds us of the fable of the dog in the horse’s manger, for she can neither eat herself nor let others eat.  She will not accept Don Giovanni Saracinesca’s devotion, but she effectually prevents him from fulfilling his engagements to others.”

If Corona had been in her ordinary mood, she would very likely have laughed at the anonymous communication.  She had formerly received more than one passionate declaration, not signed indeed, but accompanied always by some clue to the identity of the writer, and she had carelessly thrown them into the fire.  But there was no such indication here whereby she might discover who it was who had undertaken to criticise her, to cast upon her so unjust an accusation.  Moreover, she was very angry and altogether thrown out of her usually calm humour.  Her first impulse was to go to her husband, and in the strength of her innocence to show him the letter.  Then she laughed bitterly as she thought how the selfish old dandy would scoff at her sensitiveness, and how utterly incapable he would be of discovering the offender or of punishing the offence.  Then again her face was grave, and she asked herself whether it was true that she was innocent; whether she were not really to be blamed, if perhaps she had really prevented Giovanni from marrying Donna Tullia.

But if that were true, she must herself be the woman he spoke of in his letter.  Any other woman would have suspected as much.  Corona went to the window, and for an instant there was a strange light of pleasure in her face.  Then she grew very thoughtful, and her whole mood changed.  She could not conceive it possible that Giovanni so loved her as to marry for her sake.  Besides, no one could ever have breathed a word of him in connection with herself—­until this abominable anonymous letter was written.

The thought that she might, after all, be the “person very dear to him,” the one who “took no interest whatever in him,” had nevertheless crossed her mind, and had given her for one moment a sense of wild and indescribable pleasure.  Then she remembered what she had felt before; how angry, how utterly beside herself, she had been at the thought of another woman being loved by him, and she suddenly understood that she was jealous of her.  The very thought revived in her the belief that it was not she herself who was thus influencing the life of Giovanni Saracinesca, but another, and she sat silent and pale.