But she did not know.
"For the sake of her innocence, Giovanni!" she exclaimed. "Can you
let a child like that suffer so? I am sure, if you really would
you could manage it, with your influence. Do you not see that I am
suffering too, for the girl's sake?"
"Will you say that it is for your sake?"
"For my sake--if you will," she cried almost impatiently.
"For your sake, then," he answered. "Remember that it is for you,
Corona."
Before she could answer, he had left the room, without another
word, without so much as touching her hand. Corona gazed sadly at
the open door, and then returned to Faustina.
An hour later the nun entered the cell, with a bright smile on her
face.
"Your carriage is waiting for you--for you both," she said,
addressing the princess. "Donna Faustina is free to return to her
mother."
CHAPTER XXIII.
When Giovanni Saracinesca had visited Cardinal Antonelli on the
previous evening, he had been as firmly persuaded that Faustina
was innocent, as Corona herself, and was at first very much
astonished by the view the great man took of the matter. But as
the latter developed the case, the girl's guilt no longer seemed
impossible, or even improbable. The total absence of any
ostensible incentive to the murder gave Faustina's quarrel with
her father a very great importance, which was further heightened
by the nature of the evidence.
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