t be whom Giovanni so
loved; and with her curiosity there was a new feeling--an utterly hateful
and hating passion--something so strong, that it suddenly dried her tears
and sent the blood from her cheeks back to her heart. Her white hand was
clenched, and her eyes were on fire. Ah, if she could only find that
woman he loved! if she could only see her dead--dead with Giovanni
Saracinesca there upon the floor before her! As she thought of it, she
stamped her foot upon the thick carpet, and her face grew paler. She did
not know what it was that she felt, but it completely overmastered her.
Padre Filippo would be pleased, she thought, for she knew how in that
moment she hated Giovanni Saracinesca.

With a sudden impulse she again sat down and opened the letter next to
her hand. It was a gossiping epistle from a friend in Paris, full of
stories of the day, exclamations upon fashion and all kinds of emptiness;
she was about to throw it down impatiently and take up the next when her
eyes caught Giovanni's name.

"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