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.
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