Corona d'Astrardente was a very dark woman. In all the Southern land
there were no eyes so black as hers, no cheeks of such a warm dark-olive
tint, no tresses of such raven hue. But if she was not fair, she was very
beautiful; there was a delicacy in her regular features that artists said
was matchless; her mouth, not small, but generous and nobly cut, showed
perhaps more strength, more even determination, than most men like to see
in women's faces; but in the exquisitely moulded nostrils there lurked
much sensitiveness and the expression of much courage; and the level brow
and straight-cut nose were in their clearness as an earnest of the noble
thoughts that were within, and that so often spoke from the depths of her
splendid eyes. She was not a scornful beauty, though her face could
express scorn well enough. Where another woman would have shown disdain,
she needed but to look grave, and her silence did the rest. She wielded
magnificent weapons, and wielded them nobly, as she did all things. She
needed all her strength, too, for her position from the first was not
easy. She had few troubles, but they were great ones, and she bore
them bravely.

One may well ask why Corona del Carmine had married the old man who was
her husband--the broken-down and worn-out dandy of sixty, whose career
was so well known, and whose doings had been as scandalous as his ancient
name was famous in the history of his country. Her marriage was in itself
almost a tragedy. It matters little to know how it came about; she
accepted Astrardente with his dukedom, his great wealth, and his evil
past, on the day when she left the convent where she had been educated;
she did it to save her father from ruin, almost from starvation; she
was seventeen, years of age; she was told that the world was bad, and
she resolved to begin her life by a heroic sacrifice; she took the
step heroically, and no human being had ever heard her complain. Five
years had elapsed since then, and her father--for whom she had given all