"Frankly—I think it would be better to leave things alone. Do you not think so, too?"
"How coolly you say that!" exclaimed Giovanni. "It is so easy for you—so hard for me. I would do anything you asked, and you will not ask anything, because you would make any sacrifice rather than accept one from me. Did you ever really love me, Corona? Is it possible that love can be killed in a day, by a word? I wonder whether there is any woman alive as cold as you are! Is it anything to you that I should suffer as I am suffering, every day?"
"You cannot understand—"
"No—that is true. I cannot understand. I was base, cowardly, cruel—I make no defence. But if I was all that, and more too, it was because I loved you, because the least suspicion drove me mad, because I could not reason, loving you as I did, any more than I can reason now. Oh, I love you too much, too wholly, too foolishly! I will try and change and be another man—so that I may at least look at you without going mad!"
He rose to his feet and went towards the door. But Corona called him back. The bitterness of his words and the tone in which they were spoken hurt her, and made her realise for a moment what he was suffering.
"Giovanni—dear—do not leave me so—I am unhappy, too."
"Are you?" He had come to her side and stood looking down into her eyes.
"Wretchedly unhappy." She turned her face away again. She could not help it.
"You are unhappy, and yet I can do nothing. Why do you call me back?"
"If I only could, if I only could!" she repeated in a low voice.