Marietta: A Maid of Venice

Aristarchi rose early, though it had been broad dawn when he had entered his home. He lived not far from the house of the Agnus Dei, on the opposite side of the same canal but beyond the Baker's Bridge. His house was small and unpretentious, a little wooden building in two stories, with a small door opening to the water and another at the back, giving access to a patch of dilapidated and overgrown garden, whence a second door opened upon a dismal and unsavoury alley. One faithful man, who had followed him through many adventures, rendered him such services as he needed, prepared the food he liked and guarded the house in his absence. The fellow was far too much in awe of his terrible master to play the spy or to ask inopportune questions.

The Greek put on the rich dress of a merchant captain of his own people, the black coat, thickly embroidered with gold, the breeches of dark blue cloth, the almost transparent linen shirt, open at the throat. A large blue cap of silk and cloth was set far back on his head, showing all the bony forehead, and his coal-black beard and shaggy hair had been combed as smooth as their shaggy nature would allow. He wore a magnificent belt fully two hands wide, in which were stuck three knives of formidable length and breadth, in finely chased silver sheaths. His muscular legs were encased in leathern gaiters, ornamented with gold and silver, and on his feet he wore broad turned-up slippers from Constantinople. The dress was much the same as that which the Turks had found there a few years earlier, and which they soon amalgamated with their own. It set off the captain's vast breadth of shoulder and massive limbs, and as he stepped into his hired boat the idlers at the water-stairs gazed upon him with an admiration of which he was well aware, for besides being very splendidly dressed he looked as if he could have swept them all into the canal with a turn of his hand.

Without saying whither he was bound he directed the oarsman through the narrow channels until he reached the shallow lagoon. The boatman asked whither he should go.

"To Murano," answered the Greek. "And keep over by Saint Michael's, for the tide is low."

The boatman had already understood that his passenger knew Venice almost as well as he. The boat shot forward at a good rate under the bending oar, and in twenty minutes Aristarchi was at the entrance to the canal of San Piero and within sight of Beroviero's house.

"Easy there," said the Greek, holding up his hand. "Do you know Murano well, my man?"

"As well as Venice, sir."

"Whose house is that, which has the upper story built on columns over the footway?"

"It belongs to Messer Angelo Beroviero. His glass-house takes up all the left aide of the canal as far as the bridge."

"And beyond the bridge I can see two new houses, on the same side. Whose are they?"

"They belong to the two sons of Messer Angelo Beroviero, who have furnaces of their own, all the way to the corner of the Grand Canal."

"Is there a Grand Canal in Murano?" asked Aristarchi.

"They call it so," answered the boatman with some contempt. "The Beroviero have several houses on it, too."

"It seems to me that Beroviero owns most of Murano," observed the Greek. "He must be very rich."

"He is by far the richest. But there is Alvise Trevisan, a rich man, too, and there are two or three others. The island and all the glass-works are theirs, amongst them."

"I have business with Messer Angelo," said Aristarchi. "But if he is such a great man he will hardly be in the glass-house."

"I will ask," answered the boatman.

In a few minutes he made his boat fast to the steps before the glass-house, went ashore and knocked at the door. Aristarchi leaned back in his seat, chewing pistachio nuts, which he carried in an embroidered leathern bag at his belt. His right hand played mechanically with the short string of thick amber beads which he used for counting. The June sun blazed down upon his swarthy face.

At the grating beside the door the porter's head appeared, partially visible behind the bars.

"Is Messer Angelo Beroviero within?" inquired the boatman civilly.

"What is your business?" asked the porter in a tone of surly contempt, instead of answering the question.

"There is a rich foreign gentleman here, who desires to speak with him," answered the boatman.

"Is he the Pope?" asked the porter, with fine irony.

"No, sir," said the other, intimidated by the fellow's manner. "He is a rich—"

"Tell him to wait, then." And the surly head disappeared.

The boatman supposed that the man was gone to speak with his master, and waited patiently by the door. Aristarchi chewed his pistachio nut till there was nothing left, at which time he reached the end of his patience. He argued that it was a good sign if Angelo Beroviero kept rich strangers waiting at his gate, for it showed that he had no need of their custom. On the other hand the Greek's dignity was offended now that he had been made to wait too long, for he was hasty by nature. Once, in a fit of irritation with a Candiot who stammered out of sheer fright, the captain had ordered him to be hanged. Having finished his nut, he stood up in the boat and stepped ashore.

"Knock again," he said to the boatman, who obeyed.

There was no answer this time.

"I can hear the fellow inside," said the boatman.

The grating was too high for a man to look through it from outside. Aristarchi laid his knotty hands on the stone sill and pulled himself up till his face was against the grating. He now looked in and saw the porter sitting in his chair.

"Have you taken my message to your master?" inquired the Greek.

The porter looked up in surprise, which increased when he caught sight of the ferocious face of the speaker. But he was not to be intimidated so easily.

"Messer Angelo is not to be disturbed at his studies," he said. "If you wait till noon, perhaps he will come out to go to dinner."

"Perhaps!" repeated Aristarchi, still hanging by his hands. "Do you think I shall wait all day?"

"I do not know. That is your affair."

"Precisely. And I do not mean to wait."

"Then go away."

But the Greek had come on an exploring expedition in which he had nothing to lose. Hauling himself up a little higher, till his mouth was close to the grating, he hailed the house as he would have hailed a ship at sea, in a voice of thunder.

"Ahoy there! Is any one within? Ahoy! Ahoy!"

This was more than the porter's equanimity could bear. He looked about for a weapon with which to attack the Greek's face through the bars, heaping, upon him a torrent of abuse in the meantime.

"Son of dogs and mules!" he cried in a rising growl. "Ill befall the foul souls of thy dead and of their dead before them."

"Ahoy—oh! Ahoy!" bellowed the Greek, who now thoroughly enjoyed the situation.

The boatman, anxious for drink money, and convinced that his huge employer would get the better of the porter, had obligingly gone down upon his hands and knees, thrusting his broad back under the captain's feet, so that Aristarchi stood upon him and was now prepared to prolong the interview without any further effort. His terrific shouts rang through the corridor to the garden.

The first person to enter the little lodge was Marietta herself, and the Greek broke off short in the middle of another tremendous yell as soon as he saw her. She turned her face up to him, quite fearlessly, and was very much inclined to laugh as she saw the sudden change in his expression.

"Madam," he said with great politeness, "I beg you to forgive my manner of announcing myself. If your porter were more obliging, I should have been admitted in the ordinary way."

"What is this atrocious disturbance?" asked Zorzi, entering before Marietta could answer. "Pray leave the fellow to me," he added, speaking to Marietta, who cast one more glance at Aristarchi and went out.

"Sir," said the captain blandly, "I admit that my behaviour may give you some right to call me 'fellow,' but I trust that my apology will make you consider me a gentleman like yourself. Your porter altogether refused to take a message to Messer Angelo Beroviero. May I ask whether you are his son, sir?"

"No, sir. You say that you wish to speak with the master. I can take a message to him, but I am not sure that he will see any one to-day."

Aristarchi imagined that Beroviero made himself inaccessible, in order to increase the general idea of his wealth and importance. He resolved to convey a strong impression of his own standing.

"I am the chief partner in a great house of Greek merchants settled in Palermo," he said. "My name is Charalambos Aristarchi, and I desire the honour of speaking with Messer Angelo about the purchase of several cargoes of glass for the King of Sicily."

"I will deliver your message, sir," said Zorzi. "Pray wait a minute, I will open the door."

Aristarchi's big head disappeared at last.

"Yes!" growled the porter to Zorzi. "Open the door yourself, and take the blame. The man has the face of a Turkish pirate, and his voice is like the bellowing of several bulls."

Zorzi unbarred the door, which opened inward, and Aristarchi turned a little sideways in order to enter, for his shoulders would have touched the two door-posts. The slight and gracefully built Dalmatian looked at him with some curiosity, standing aside to let him pass, before barring the door again. Aristarchi, though not much taller than himself, was the biggest man he had ever seen. He thanked Zorzi, who pushed forward the porter's only chair for him to sit on while he waited.

"I will bring you an answer immediately," said Zorzi, and disappeared down the corridor.

Aristarchi sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and took a pistachio nut from his pouch.

"Master porter," he began in a friendly tone, "can you tell me who that beautiful lady is, who came here a moment ago?"

"There is no reason why I should," snarled the porter, beginning to strip the outer leaves from a large onion which he pulled from a string of them hanging by the wall.

Aristarchi said nothing for a few moments, but watched the man with an air of interest.

"Were you ever a pirate?" he inquired presently.

"No, I never served in your crew."

The porter was not often at a loss for a surly answer. The Greek laughed outright, in genuine amusement.

"I like your company, my friend," he said. "I should like to spend the day here."

"As the devil said to Saint Anthony," concluded the porter.

Aristarchi laughed again. It was long since he had enjoyed such amusing conversation, and there was a certain novelty in not being feared. He repeated his first question, however, remembering that he had not come in search of diversion, but to gather information.

"Who was the beautiful lady?" he asked. "She is Messer Angelo's daughter, is she not?"

"A man who asks a question when he knows the answer is either a fool or a knave. Choose as you please."

"Thanks, friend," answered Aristarchi, still grinning and showing his jagged teeth. "I leave the first choice to you. Whichever you take, I will take the other. For if you call me a knave, I shall call you a fool, but if you think me a fool, I am quite satisfied that you should be the knave."

The porter snarled, vaguely feeling that the Greek had the better of him. At that moment Zorzi returned, and his coming put an end to the exchange of amenities.

"My master has no long leisure," he said, "but he begs you to come in."

They left the lodge together, and the porter watched them as they went down the dark corridor, muttering unholy things about the visitor who had disturbed him, and bestowing a few curses on Zorzi. Then he went back to peeling his onions.

As Aristarchi went through the garden, he saw Marietta sitting under the plane-tree, making a little net of coloured beads. Her face was turned from him and bent down, but when he had passed she glanced furtively after him, wondering at his size. But her eyes followed Zorzi, till the two reached the door and went in. A moment later Zorzi came out again, leaving his master and the Greek together. Marietta looked down at once, lest her eyes should betray her gladness, for she knew that Zorzi would not go back and could not leave the glass-house, so that site should necessarily be alone with him while the interview in the laboratory lasted.

He came a little way down the path, then stopped, took a short knife from his wallet and began to trim away a few withered sprigs from a rose-bush. She waited a moment, but he showed no signs of coming nearer, so she spoke to him.

"Will you come here?" she asked softly, looking towards him with half-closed eyes.

He slipped the knife back into his pouch and walked quickly to her side. She looked down again, threading the coloured beads that half filled a small basket in her lap.

"May I ask you a question?" Her voice had a little persuasive hesitation in it, as if she wished him to understand that the answer would be a favour of which she was anything but certain.

"Anything you will," said Zorzi.

"Provided I do not ask about my father's secret!" A little laughter trembled in the words. "You were so severe yesterday, you know. I am almost afraid ever to ask you anything again."

"I will answer as well as I can."

"Well—tell me this. Did you really take the boat and go to Venice last night?"

"Yes."

Marietta's hand moved with the needle among the beads, but she did not thread one. Nella had been right, after all.

"Why did you go, Zorzi?" The question came in a lower tone that was full of regret.

"The master sent me," answered Zorzi, looking down at her hair, and wishing that he could see her face.

His wish was almost instantly fulfilled. After the slightest pause she looked up at him with a lovely smile; yet when he saw that rare look in her face, his heart sank suddenly, instead of swelling and standing still with happiness, and when she saw how sad he was, she was grave with the instant longing to feel whatever he felt of pain or sorrow. That is one of the truest signs of love, but Zorzi had not learned much of love's sign-language yet, and did not understand.

"What is it?" she asked almost tenderly.

He turned his eyes from her and rested one hand against the trunk of the plane-tree.

"I do not understand," he said slowly.

"Why are you so sad? What is it that is always making you suffer?"

"How could I tell you?" The words were spoken almost under his breath.

"It would be very easy to tell me," she said. "Perhaps I could help you—"

"Oh no, no, no!" he cried with an accent of real pain. "You could not help me!"

"Who knows? Perhaps I am the best friend you have in the world, Zorzi."

"Indeed I believe you are! No one has ever been so good to me."

"And you have not many friends," continued Marietta. "The workmen are jealous of you, because you are always with my father. My brothers do not like you, for the same reason, and they think that you will get my father's secret from him some day, and outdo them all. No—you have not many friends."

"I have none, but you and the master. The men would kill me if they dared."

Marietta started a little, remembering how the workmen had looked at him in the morning, when he came out.

"You need not be afraid," he added, seeing her movement. "They will not touch me."

"Does my father know what your trouble is?" asked Marietta suddenly.

"No! That is—I have no trouble, I assure you. I am of a melancholy nature."

"I am glad it has nothing to do with the secrets," said the young girl, quietly ignoring the last part of his speech. "If it had, I could not help you at all. Could I?"

That morning it had seemed an easy thing to wait even two years before giving him a sign, before dropping in his path the rose which she would not ask of him again. The minutes seemed years now. For she knew well enough what his trouble was, since yesterday; he loved her, and he thought it infinitely impossible, in his modesty, that she should ever stoop to him. After she had spoken, she looked at him with half-closed eyes for a while, but he stared stonily at the trunk of the tree beside his hand. Gradually, as she gazed, her lids opened wider, and the morning sunlight sparkled in the deep blue, and her fresh lips parted. Before she was aware of it he was looking at her with a strange expression she had never seen. Then she faintly blushed and looked down at her beads once more. She felt as if she had told him that she loved him. But he had not understood. He had only seen the transfiguration of her face, and it had been for a moment as he had never seen it before. Again his heart sank suddenly, and he uttered a little sound that was more than a sigh and less than a groan.

"There are remedies for almost every kind of pain," said Marietta wisely, as she threaded several beads.

"Give me one for mine," he cried almost bitterly. "Bid that which is to cease from being, and that to be which is not earthly possible! Turn the world back, and undo truth, and make it all a dream! Then I shall find the remedy and forget that it was needed."

"There are magicians who pretend to do such things," she answered softly.

"I would there were!" he sighed.

"But those who come to them for help tell all, else the magician has no power. Would you call a physician, if you were ill, and tell him that the pain you felt was in your head, if it was really—in your heart?"

She had paused an instant before speaking the last words, and they came with a little effort.

"How could the physician cure you, if you would not tell him the truth?" she asked, as he said nothing. "How can the wizard work miracles for you, unless he knows what miracle you ask? How can your best friend help you if—if she does not know what help you need?"

Still he was silent, leaning against the tree, with bent head. The pain was growing worse, and harder to bear. She spoke so softly and kindly that it would have been easy to tell her the truth, he thought, for though she could never love him, she would understand, and would forgive him. He had not dreamed that friendship could be so kind.

"Am I right?" she asked, after a pause.

"Yes," he answered. "When I cannot bear it any longer, I will tell you, and you will help me."

"Why not now?"

The little question might have been ruinous to all his resolution, if Zorzi had not been almost like a child in his simplicity—or like a saint in his determination to be loyal. For he thought it loyalty to be silent, not only for the sake of the promise he had given in return for his life, but in respect of his master also, who put such great trust in him.

"Pray do not press me with the question," he said. "You tempt me very much, and I do not wish to speak of what I feel. Be my friend in real truth, if you can, and do not ask me to say what I shall ever after wish unsaid. That will be the best friendship."

Marietta looked across the garden thoughtfully, and suddenly a chilling doubt fell upon her heart. She could not have been mistaken yesterday, she could not be deceived in him now; and yet, if he loved her as she believed, she had said all that a maiden could to show him that she would listen willingly. She had said too much, and she felt ashamed and hurt, almost resentful. He was not a boy. If he loved her, he could find words to tell her so, and should have found them, for she had helped him to her utmost. Suddenly, she almost hated him, for what his silence made her feel, and she told herself that she was glad he had not dared to speak, for she did not love him at all. It was all a sickening mistake, it was all a miserable little dream; she wished that he would go away and leave her to herself. Not that she should shed a single tear! She was far too angry for that, but his presence, so near her, reminded her of what she had done. He must have seen, all through their talk, that she was trying to make him tell his love, and there was nothing to tell. Of course he would despise her. That was natural, but she had a right to hate him for it, and she would, with all her heart! Her thoughts all came together in a tumult of disgust and resentment. If Zorzi did not go away presently, she would go away herself. She was almost resolved to get up and leave the garden, when the door opened.

"Zorzi!" It was Beroviero's voice.

Aristarchi already stood in the doorway taking leave of Beroviero with, many oily protestations of satisfaction in having made his acquaintance. Zorzi went forward to accompany the Greek to the door.

"I shall never forget that I have had the honour of being received by the great artist himself," said Aristarchi, who held his big cap in his hand and was bowing low on the threshold.

"The pleasure has been all on my side," returned Beroviero courteously.

"On the contrary, quite on the contrary," protested his guest, backing away and then turning to go.

Zorzi walked beside him, on his left. As they reached the entrance to the corridor Aristarchi turned once more, and made an elaborate bow, sweeping the ground with his cap, for Beroviero had remained at the door till he should be out of sight. He bent his head, making a gracious gesture with his hand, and went in as the Greek disappeared. Zorzi followed the latter, showing him out.

Marietta saw the door close after her father, and she knew that Zorzi must come back through the garden in a few moments. She bent her head over her beads as she heard his step, and pretended not to see him. When he came near her he stood still a moment, but she would not look up, and between annoyance and disappointment and confusion she felt that she was blushing, which she would not have had Zorzi see for anything. She wondered why he did not go on.

"Have I offended you?" he asked, in a low voice.

Oddly enough, her embarrassment disappeared as soon as he spoke, and the blush faded away.

"No," she answered, coldly enough. "I am not angry—I am only sorry."

"But I am glad that I would not answer your question," returned Zorzi.

"I doubt whether you had any answer to give," retorted Marietta with a touch of scorn.

Zorzi's brows contracted sharply and he made a movement to go on. So her proffered friendship was worth no more than that, he thought. She was angry and scornful because her curiosity was disappointed. She could not have guessed his secret, he was sure, though that might account for her temper, for she would of course be angry if she knew that he loved her. And she was angry now because he had refused to tell her so. That was a woman's logic, he thought, quite regardless of the defect in his own. It was just like a woman! He sincerely wished that he might tell her so.

In the presence of Marietta the man who had confronted sudden death less than twenty-four hours ago, with a coolness that had seemed imposing to other men, was little better than a girl himself. He turned to go on, without saying more. But she stopped him.

"I am sorry that you do not care for my friendship," she said, in a hurt tone. She could not have said anything which he would have found it harder to answer just then.

"What makes you think that?" he asked, hoping to gain time.

"Many things. It is quite true, so it does not matter what makes me think it!"

She tried to laugh scornfully, but there was a quaver in her voice which she herself had not expected and was very far from understanding. Why should she suddenly feel that she was going to cry? It had seemed so ridiculous in poor Nella that morning. Yet there was a most unmistakable something in her throat, which frightened her. It would be dreadful if she should burst into tears over her beads before Zorzi's eyes. She tried to gulp the something: down, and suddenly, as she bent over the basket, she saw the beautiful, hateful drops falling fast upon the little dry glass things; and even then, in her shame at being seen, she wondered why the beads looked, bigger through the glistening tears—she remembered afterwards how they looked, so she must have noticed them at the time.

Zorzi knew too little of women to have any idea of what he ought to do under the circumstances. He did not know whether to turn his back or to go away, so he stood still and looked at her, which was the very worst thing he could have done. Worse still, he tried to reason with her.

"I assure you that you are mistaken," he said in a soothing tone. "I wish for your friendship with all my heart! Only, when you ask me—"

"Oh, go away! For heaven's sake go away!" cried Marietta, almost choking, and turning her face quite away, so that he could only see the back of her head.

At the same time, she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot, and to make matters worse, the little basket of beads began to slip off her knees at the same moment. She caught at it desperately, trying not to look round and half blinded by her tears, but she missed it, and but for Zorzi it would have fallen. He put it into her hands very gently, but she was not in the least grateful.

"Oh, please go away!" she repeated. "Can you not understand?"

He did not understand, but he obeyed her and turned away, very grave, very much puzzled by this new development of affairs, and sincerely wishing that some wise familiar spirit would whisper the explanation in his ear, since he could not possibly consult any living person.

She heard him go and she listened for the shutting of the laboratory door. Then she knew that she was quite alone in the garden, and she let the tears flow as they would, bending her head till it touched the trunk of the tree, and they wet the smooth bark and ran down to the dry earth.

Zorzi went in, and began to tend the fire as usual, until it should please the master to give him other orders. Old Beroviero was sitting in the big chair in which he sometimes rested himself, his elbow on one of its arms, and his hand grasping his beard below his chin.

"Zorzi," he said at last, "I have seen that man before."

Zorzi looked at him, expecting more, but for some time Beroviero said nothing. The young man selected his pieces of beech wood, laying them ready before the little opening just above the floor.

"It is very strange," said Beroviero at last. "He seems to be a rich merchant now, but I am almost quite sure that I saw him in Naples."

"Did you know him there, sir?" asked Zorzi.

"No," answered his master thoughtfully. "I saw him in a cart with his hands tied behind him, on his way to be hanged."

"He looks as if one hanging would not be enough for him," observed Zorzi.

Beroviero was silent for a moment. Then he laughed, and he laughed very rarely.

"Yes," he said. "It is not a face one could forget easily," he added.

Then he rose and went back to his table.

The sun was high over Venice, gleaming on the blue lagoons that lightly rippled under a southerly breeze, filling the vast square of Saint Mark's with blinding light, casting deep shadows behind the church and in the narrow alleys and canals to northward, about the Merceria. The morning haze had long since blown away, and the outlines of the old church and monastery on Saint George's island, and of the buildings on the Guidecca, and on the low-lying Lido, were hard and clear against the cloudless sky, mere designs cut out in rich colours, as if with a sharp knife, and reared up against a background of violent light. In Venice only the melancholy drenching rain of a winter's day brings rest to the eye, when water meets water and sky is washed into sea and the city lies soaking and dripping between two floods. But soon the wind shifts to the northeast, out breaks the sun again, and all Venice is instantly in a glare of light and colour and startling distinctness, like the sails and rigging of a ship at sea on a clear day.

It was Sunday morning and high mass was over in Saint Mark's. The crowd had streamed out of the central door, spreading like a bright fan over the square, the men in gay costumes, red, green, blue, yellow, purple, brown, and white, their legs particoloured in halves and quarters, so that when looking at a group it was mere guesswork to match the pair that belonged to one man; women in dresses of one tone, mostly rich and dark, and often heavily embroidered, for no sumptuary laws could effectually limit outward display, and the insolent vanity of an age still almost mediaeval made it natural that the rich should attire themselves as richly as they could, and that the poor should be despised for wearing poor clothes.

Angelo Beroviero had a true Venetian's taste for splendour, but he was also deeply imbued with the Venetian love of secrecy in all matters that concerned his private life. When he bade Marietta accompany him to Venice on that Sunday morning, he was equally anxious that she should be as finely dressed as was becoming for the daughter of a wealthy citizen, and that she should be in ignorance of the object of the trip. She was not to know that Jacopo Contarini would be standing beside the second column on the left, watching her with lazily critical eyes; she was merely told that she and her father were to dine in the house of a certain Messer Luigi Foscarini, Procurator of Saint Mark, who was an old and valued friend, though a near connection of Alvise Trevisan, a rival glass-maker of Murano. All this had been carefully planned in order that during their absence Beroviero's house might be suitably prepared for the solemn family meeting which was to take place late in the afternoon, and at which her betrothal was to be announced, but of which Marietta knew nothing. Her father counted upon surprising her and perhaps dazzling her, so as to avoid all discussion and all possibility of resistance on her part. She should see Contarini in the church, and while still under the first impression of his beauty and magnificence, she should be told before her assembled family that she was solemnly bound to marry him in two months' time.

Beroviero never expected opposition in anything he wished to do, but he had always heard that young girls could find a thousand reasons for not marrying the man their parents chose for them, and he believed that he could make all argument and hesitation impossible. Marietta doubtless expected to have a week in which to make up her mind. She should have five hours, and even that was too much, thought Beroviero. He would have preferred to march her to the altar without any preliminaries and marry her to Contarini without giving her a chance of seeing him before the ceremony. After all, that was the custom of the day.

The fortunes of love were in his favour, for Marietta had spent three miserably unhappy days and nights since she had last talked with Zorzi in the garden. From that time he had avoided her moat carefully, never coming out of the laboratory when she was under the tree with her work, never raising his eyes to look at her when she came in and talked with her father. When she entered the big room, he made a solemn bow and occupied himself in the farthest corner so long as she remained. There is a stage in which even the truest and purest love of boy and maiden feeds on misunderstandings. In a burst of tears, and ashamed that she should be seen crying, Marietta had bidden him go away; in the folly of his young heart he took her at her word, and avoided her consistently. He had been hurt by the words, but by a kind of unconscious selfishness his pain helped him to do what he believed to be his duty.

And Marietta forgot that he had picked up the rose dropped by her in the path, she forgot that she had seen him stand gazing up at her window, with a look that could mean only love, she forgot how tenderly and softly he had answered her in the garden; she only remembered that she had done her utmost, and too much, to make him tell her that he loved her, and in vain. She could not forgive him that, for even after three days her cheeks burned fiercely whenever she thought of it. After that, it mattered nothing what became of her, whether she were betrothed, or whether she were married, or whether she went mad, or even whether she died—that would be the best of all.

In this mood Marietta entered the gondola and seated herself by her father on Sunday morning. She wore an embroidered gown of olive green, a little open at her dazzling throat, and a silk mantle of a darker tone hung from her shoulders, to protect her from the sun rather than from the air. Her russet hair was plaited in a thick flat braid, and brought round her head like a broad coronet of red gold, and a point lace veil, pinned upon it with stoat gold pins, hang down behind and was brought forward carelessly upon one shoulder.

Beside her, Angelo Beroviero was splendid in dark red cloth and purple silk. He was proud of his daughter, who was betrothed to the heir of a great Venetian house, he was proud of his own achievements, of his wealth, of the richly furnished gondola, of his two big young oarsmen in quartered yellow and blue hose and snowy shirts, and of his liveried man in blue and gold, who sat outside the low 'felse' on a little stool, staff in hand, ready to attend upon his master and young mistress whenever they should please to go on foot.

Marietta had got into the gondola without so much as glancing across the canal to see whether Zorzi were standing there to see them push off, as he often did when she and her father went out together. If he were there, she meant to show him that she could be more indifferent than he; if he were not, she would show herself that she did not care enough even to look for him. But when the gondola was out of sight of the house she wished she knew whether he had looked out or not.

Her father had told her that they were going to dine with the Procurator Foscarini and his wife. The pair had one daughter, of Marietta's age, and she was a cripple from birth. Marietta was fond of her, and it was a relief to get away from Murano, even for half a day. The visit explained well enough why her father had desired her to put on her best gown and most valuable lace. She really had not the slightest idea that anything more important was on foot.

Beroviero looked at her in silence as they sped along with the gently rocking motion of the gondola, which is not exactly like any other movement in the world. He had already noticed that she was paler than usual, but the extraordinary whiteness of her skin made her pallor becoming to her, and it was set off by the colour of her hair, as ivory by rough gold. He wondered whether she had guessed whither he was taking her.

"It is a long time since we were in Saint Mark's together," he said at last.

"It must be more than a year," answered Marietta. "We pass it often, but we hardly ever go in."

"It is early," observed Beroviero, speaking as indifferently as he could. "When we left home it lacked an hour and a half of noon by the dial. Shall we go into the church for a while?"

"If you like," replied Marietta mechanically.

Nothing made much difference that morning, but she knew that the high mass would be over and that the church would be quiet and cool. It was not at that time the cathedral of Venice, though it had always been the church in which the doges worshipped in state.

They landed at the low steps in the Rio del Palazzo, and the servant held out his bent elbow for Marietta to steady herself, though he knew that she would not touch it, for she was light and sure-footed as a fawn; but Beroviero leaned heavily on his man's arm. They came round the Patriarch's palace into the open square, whence the crowd had nearly all disappeared, dispersing in different directions. Just as they were within sight of the great doors of the church, Beroviero saw a very tall man in a purple silk mantle going in alone. It was Contarini, and Beroviero drew a little sigh of relief. The intended bridegroom was punctual, but Beroviero thought that he might have shown such anxiety to see his bride as should have brought him to the door a few minutes before the time.

Marietta had drawn her veil across her face, leaving only her eyes uncovered, according to custom.

"It is hot," she complained.

"It will be cool in the church," answered her father. "Throw your veil back, my dear—there is no one to see you."

"There is the sun," she said, for she had been taught that one of a Venetian lady's chief beauties is her complexion.

"Well, well—there will be no sun in the church." And the old man hurried her in, without bestowing a glance upon the bronze horses over the door, to admire which he generally stopped a few moments in passing.

They entered the great church, and the servant went before them, dipped his fingers in the basin and offered them holy water. They crossed themselves, and Marietta bent one knee, looking towards the high altar. A score of people were scattered about, kneeling and standing in the nave.

Contarini was leaning against the second pillar on the left, and had been watching the door when Marietta and her father entered. Beroviero saw him at once, but led his daughter up the opposite side of the nave, knelt down beside her a moment at the screen, then crossed and came down the aisle, and at last turned into the nave again by the second pillar, so as to come upon Contarini as it were unawares. This all seemed necessary to him in order that Marietta should receive a very strong and sudden impression, which should leave no doubt in her mind. Contarini himself was too thoroughly Venetian not to understand what Beroviero was doing, and when the two came upon him, he was drawn up to his full height, one gloved hand holding his cap and resting on his hip; the other, gloveless, and white as a woman's, was twisting his silky mustache. Beroviero had manoeuvred so cleverly that Marietta almost jostled the young patrician as she turned the pillar.

Contarini drew back with quick grace and a slight inclination of his body, and then pretended the utmost surprise on seeing his valued friend Messer Angelo Beroviero.

"My most dear sir!" he exclaimed. "This is indeed good fortune!"

"Mine, Messer Jacopo!" returned Beroviero with equally well-feigned astonishment.

Marietta had looked Contarini full in the face before she had time to draw her veil across her own. She stepped back and placed herself behind her father, protected as it were by their serving-man, who stood beside her with his staff. She understood instantly that the magnificent patrician was the man of whom her father had spoken as her future husband. Seen, as she had seen him, in the glowing church, in the most splendid surroundings that could be imagined, he was certainly a man at whom any woman would look twice, even out of curiosity, and through her veil Marietta looked again, till she saw his soft brown eyes scrutinising her appearance; then she turned quickly away, for she had looked long enough. She saw that a woman in black was kneeling by the next pillar, watching her intently with a sort of cold stare that almost made her shudder. Yet the woman was exceedingly beautiful. It was easy to see that, though the dark veil hid half her face and its folds concealed most of her figure. The mysterious, almond-shaped eyes were those of another race, the marble cheek was more perfectly modelled and turned than an Italian's, the curling golden hair was more glorious than any Venetian's. Arisa had come to see her master's bride, and he knew that she was there looking on. Why should he care? It was a bargain, and he was not going to give up Arisa and the house of the Agnus Dei because he meant to marry the rich glass-blower's daughter.

Marietta imagined no connection between the woman and the man, who thus insolently came to the same place to look at her, pretending not to know one another; and when she looked back at Contarini she felt a miserable little thrill of vanity as she noticed that he was looking fixedly at her, and that his eyes did not wander to the face of that other woman, who was so much more beautiful than herself. Perhaps, after all, he would really prefer her to that matchless creature close beside her! Nothing mattered, of course, since Zorzi did not love her, but after all it was flattering to be admired by Jacopo Contarini, who could choose his wife where he pleased, through the whole world.

It all happened in a few seconds. The two men exchanged a few words, to which she paid no attention, and took leave of each other with great ceremony and much bowing on both sides. When her father turned at last, Marietta was already walking towards the door, the servant by her left side. Beroviero had scarcely joined her when she started a little, and laid her hand upon his arm.

"The Greek merchant!" she whispered.

Beroviero looked where she was looking. By the first pillar, gazing intently at Arisa's kneeling figure, stood Aristarchi, his hands folded over his broad chest, his shaggy head bent forward, his sturdy legs a little apart. He, too, had come to see the promised bride, and to be a witness of the bargain whereby he also was to be enriched.

As Marietta came out of the church, she covered her face closely and drew her silk mantle quite round her, bending her head a little. The servant walked a few paces in front.

"You have seen your future husband, my child," said Beroviero.

"I suppose that the young noble was Messer Jacopo Contarini," answered Marietta coldly.

"You are hard to please, if you are not satisfied with my choice for you," observed her father.

To this Marietta said nothing. She only bent her head a little lower, looking down as she trod delicately over the hot and dusty ground.

"And you are a most ungrateful daughter," continued Beroviero, "if you do not appreciate my kindness and liberality of mind in allowing you to see him before you are formally betrothed."

"Perhaps he is even more pleased by your liberality of mind than I could possibly be," retorted the young girl with unbending coldness. "He has probably not seen many Venetian girls of our class face to face and unveiled. He is to be congratulated on his good fortune!"

"By my faith!" exclaimed Beroviero, "it is hard to satisfy you!"

"I have asked nothing."

"Do you mean to say that you have any objections to allege against such a marriage?"

"Have I said that I should oppose it? One may obey without enthusiasm." She laughed coldly.

"Like the unprofitable servant! I had expected something more of you, my child. I have been at infinite pains and I am making great sacrifices to procure you a suitable husband, and there are scores of noble girls in Venice who would give ten years of their lives to marry Jacopo Contarini! And you say that you obey my commands without enthusiasm! You are an ungrateful—"

"No, I am not!" interrupted Marietta firmly. "I would rather not marry at all—"

"Not marry!" repeated Beroviero, interrupting her in a tone of profound stupefaction, and standing still in the sun as he spoke. "Why—what is the matter?"

"Is it so strange that I should be contented with my girl's life?" asked Marietta. "Should I not be ungrateful indeed, if I wished to leave you and become the wife of a man I have just seen for the first time?"

"You use most extraordinary arguments, my dear," replied Beroviero, quite at a loss for a suitable retort. "Of course, I have done my best to make you happy."

He paused, for she had placed him in the awkward position of being angry because she did not wish to leave him.

"I really do not know what to say," he added, after a moment's reflection.

"Perhaps there is nothing to be said," answered Marietta, in a tone of irritating superiority, for she certainly had the best of the discussion.

They had reached the gondola by this time, and as the servant sat within hearing at the open door of the 'felse,' they could not continue talking about such a matter. Beroviero was glad of it, for he regarded the affair as settled, and considered that it should be hastened to its conclusion without any further reasoning about it. If he had sent word to young Contarini that the answer should be given him in a week, that was merely an imaginary formality invented to cover his own dignity, since he had so far derogated from it as to allow the young man to see Marietta. In reality the marriage had been determined and settled between Beroviero and Contarini's father before anything had been said to either of the young people. The meeting in the church might have been dispensed with, if the patrician had been able to answer with certainty for his wild son's conduct. Jacopo had demanded it, and his father was so anxious for the marriage that he had communicated the request to Beroviero. The latter, always for his dignity's sake, had pretended to refuse, and had then secretly arranged the matter for Jacopo, as has been seen, without old Contarini's knowledge.

Marietta leaned back under the cool, dark 'felse,' and her hands lay idly in her lap. She felt that she was helpless, because she was indifferent, and that she could even now have changed the course of her destiny if she had cared to make the effort. There was no reason for making any. She did not believe that she had really loved Zorzi after all, and if she had, it seemed to-day quite impossible that she should ever have married him. He was nothing but a waif, a half-nameless servant, a stranger predestined to a poor and obscure life. As she inwardly repeated some of these considerations, she felt a little thrust of remorse for trying to look down on him as impossibly far below her own station, and a small voice told her that he was an artist, and that if he had chanced to be born in Venice he would have been as good as her brothers.

The future stretched out before her in a sort of dull magnificence that did not in the least appeal to her simple nature. She could not tell why she had despised Jacopo Contarini from the moment she looked into his beautiful eyes. Happily women are not expected to explain why they sometimes judge rightly at first sight, when a wise man is absurdly deceived. Marietta did not understand Jacopo, and she easily fancied that because her own character was the stronger she should rule him as easily as she managed Nella. It did not occur to her that he was already under the domination of another woman, who might prove to be quite as strong as she. What she saw was the weakness in his eyes and mouth. With such a man, she thought, there was little to fear; but there was nothing to love. If she asked, he would give, if she opposed him, he would surrender, if she lost her temper and commanded, he would obey with petulant docility. She should be obliged to take refuge in vanity in order to get any satisfaction out of her life, and she was not naturally vain. The luxuries of those days were familiar to her from her childhood. Though she had not lived in a palace, she had been brought up in a house that was not unlike one, she ate off silver plates and drank from glasses that were masterpieces of her father's art, she had coffers full of silks and satins, and fine linen embroidered with gold thread, there was always gold and silver in her little wallet-purse when she wanted anything or wished to give to the poor, she was waited on by a maid of her own like any fine lady of Venice, and there were a score of idle servants in a house where there were only two masters—there was nothing which Contarini could give her that would be more than a little useless exaggeration of what she had already. She had no particular desire to show herself unveiled to the world, as married women did, and she was not especially attracted by the idea of becoming one of them. She had been brought up alone, she had acquired tastes which other women had not, and which would no longer be satisfied in her married life, she loved the glass-house, she delighted in taking a blow-pipe herself and making small objects which she decorated as she pleased, she felt a lively interest in her father's experiments, she enjoyed the atmosphere of his wisdom though it was occasionally disturbed by the foolish little storms of his hot temper. And until now, she had liked to be often with Zorzi.

That was past, of course, but the rest remained, and it was much to sacrifice for the sake of becoming a Contarini, and living on the Grand Canal with a man she should always despise.

It was clearly not the idea of marriage that surprised or repelled her, not even of a marriage with a man she did not know and had seen but once. Girls were brought up to regard marriage as the greatest thing in life, as the natural goal to which all their girlhood should tend, and at the same time they were taught from childhood that it was all to be arranged for them, and that they would in due course grow fond of the man their parents chose for them. Until Marietta had begun to love Zorzi, she had accepted all these things quite naturally, as a part of every woman's life, and it would have seemed as absurd, and perhaps as impossible, to rebel against them as to repudiate the religion in which she had been born. Such beliefs turn into prejudices, and assert themselves as soon as whatever momentarily retards them is removed. By the time the gondola drew alongside of the steps of the Foscarini palace, Marietta was convinced that there was nothing for her but to submit to her fate.

"Then I am to be married in two months?" she said, in a tone of interrogation, and regardless of the servant.

Beroviero bent his head in answer and smiled kindly; for after all, he was grateful to her for accepting his decision so quietly. But Marietta was very pale after she had spoken, for the audible words somehow made it all seem dreadfully real, and out of the shadows of the great entrance hall that opened upon the canal she could fancy Zorzi's face looking at her sadly and reproachfully. The bargain was made, and the woman he loved was sold for life. For one moment, instinctive womanhood felt the accursed humiliation, and the flushing blood rose in the girl's cool cheeks.

She would have blushed deeper had she guessed who had been witnesses of her first meeting with Contarini, and old Beroviero's temper would have broken out furiously if he could have imagined that the Greek pirate who had somehow miraculously escaped the hangman in Naples had been contemplating with satisfaction the progress of the marriage negotiations, sure that he himself should before long be enjoying the better part of Marietta's rich dowry. If the old man could have had vision of Jacopo's life, and could have suddenly known what the beautiful woman in black was to the patrician, Contarini's chance of going home alive that day would have been small indeed, for Beroviero might have strangled him where he stood, and perhaps Aristarchi would have discreetly turned his back while he was doing it. For a few minutes they had all been very near together, the deceivers and the deceived, and it was not likely that they should ever all be so near again.

Contarini had never seen the Greek, and Arisa was not aware that he was in the church. When Beroviero and Marietta were gone, Jacopo turned his back on the slave for a moment as if he meant to walk further up the church. Aristarchi watched them both, for in spite of all he did not quite trust the Georgian woman, and he had never seen her alone with Jacopo when she was unaware of his own presence. Yet he was afraid to go nearer, now, lest Arisa should accidentally see him and betray by her manner that she knew him.

Jacopo turned suddenly, when he judged that he could leave the church without overtaking Beroviero, and he walked quietly down the nave. He passed close to Arisa, and Aristarchi guessed that their eyes met for a moment. He almost fancied that Contarini's lips moved, and he was sure that he smiled. But that was all, and Arisa remained on her knees, not even turning her head a little as her lover went by.

"Not so ugly after all," Contarini had said, under his breath, and the careless smile went with the words.

Arisa's lip curled contemptuously as she heard. She had drawn back her veil, her face was raised, as if she were sending up a prayer to heaven, and the light fell full upon the magnificent whiteness of her throat, that showed in strong relief against the black velvet and lace. She needed no other answer to what he said, but in the scorn of her curving mouth, which seemed all meant for Marietta, there was contempt for him, too, that would have cut him to the quick of his vanity.

Aristarchi walked deliberately by the pillar to the aisle, as he passed, and listened for the flapping of the heavy leathern curtain at the door. Then he stole nearer to the place where Arisa was still kneeling, and came noiselessly behind her and leaned against the column, and watched her, not caring if he surprised her now.

But she did not turn round. Listening intently, Aristarchi heard a soft quick whispering, and he saw that it was punctuated by a very slight occasional movement of her head.

He had not believed her when she had told him that she said her prayers at night, but she was undoubtedly praying now, and Aristarchi watched her with interest, as he might have looked at some rare foreign animal whose habits he did not understand. She was very intently bent on what she was saying, for he stayed there some time, scarcely breathing, before he turned away and disappeared in the shadows with noiseless steps.

All through the long Sunday afternoon Zorzi sat in the laboratory alone. From time to time, he tended the fire, which must not be allowed to go down lest the quality of the glass should be injured, or at least changed. Then he went back to the master's great chair, and allowed himself to think of what was happening in the house opposite.

In those days there was no formal betrothal before marriage, at which the intended bride and bridegroom joined hands or exchanged the rings which were to be again exchanged at the wedding. When a marriage had been arranged, the parents or guardians of the young couple signed the contract before a notary, a strictly commercial and legal formality, and the two families then announced the match to their respective relatives who were invited for the purpose, and were hospitably entertained. The announcement was final, and to break off a marriage after it had been announced was a deadly offence and was generally an irreparable injury to the bride.

In Beroviero's house the richest carpets were taken from the storerooms and spread upon the pavement and the stairs, tapestries of great worth and beauty were hung upon the walls, the servants were arrayed in their high-day liveries and spoke in whispers when they spoke at all, the silver dishes were piled with sweetmeats and early fruits, and the silver plates had been not only scoured, but had been polished with leather, which was not done every day. In all the rooms that were opened, silken curtains had been hung before the windows, in place of those used at other times. In a word, the house had been prepared in a few hours for a great family festivity, and when Marietta got out of the gondola, she set her foot upon a thick carpet that covered the steps and was even allowed to hang down and dip itself in the water of the canal by way of showing what little value was set upon it by the rich man.

Zorzi had known that the preparations were going forward, and he knew what they meant. He would rather see nothing of them, and when the guests were gone, old Beroviero would come over and give him some final instructions before beginning his journey; until then he could be alone in the laboratory, where only the low roar of the fire in the furnace broke the silence.

Marietta's head was aching and she felt as if the hard, hot fingers of some evil demon were pressing her eyeballs down into their sockets. She sat in an inner chamber, to which only women were admitted. There she sat, in a sort of state, a circlet of gold set upon her loosened hair, her dress all of embroidered white silk, her shoulders covered with a wide mantle of green and gold brocade that fell in heavy folds to the floor. She wore many jewels, too, such as she would not have worn in public before her marriage. They had belonged to her mother, like the mantle, and were now brought out for the first time. It was very hot, but the windows were shut lest the sound of the good ladies' voices should be heard without; for the news that Marietta was to be married had suddenly gone abroad through Murano, and all the idlers, and the men from the furnaces, where no work was done on Sunday, as well as all the poor, were assembled on the footway and the bridge, and in the narrow alleys round the house. They all pushed and jostled each other to see Beroviero's friends and relations, as they emerged from beneath the black 'felse' of their gondolas to enter the house. In the hall the guests divided, and the men gathered in a large lower chamber, while the women went upstairs to offer their congratulations to Marietta, with many set compliments upon her beauty, her clothes and her jewels, and even with occasional flattering allusions to the vast dowry her husband was to receive with her.

She listened wearily, and her head ached more and more, so that she longed for the coolness of her own room and for Nella's soothing chatter, to which she was so much accustomed that she missed it if the little brown woman chanced to be silent.

The sun went down and wax candles were brought, instead of the tall oil lamps that were used on ordinary days. It grew hotter and hotter, the compliments of the ladies seemed more and more dull and stale, her mantle was heavy and even the gold circlet on her hair was a burden. Worse than all, she knew that every minute was carrying her further and further into the dominion of the irrevocable whence she could never return.

She had looked at the palaces she had passed in Venice that morning, some in shadow, some in sunlight, some with gay faces and some grave, but all so different from the big old house in Murano, that she did not wish to live in them at all. It would have been much easier to submit if she had been betrothed to a foreigner, a Roman, or a Florentine. She had been told that Romans were all wicked and gloomy, and that Florentines were all wicked and gay. That was what Nella had heard. But in a sense they were free, for they probably did what was good in their own eyes, as wicked people often do. Life in Venice was to be lived by rule, and everything that tasted of freedom was repressed by law. If it pleased women to wear long trains the Council forbade them; if they took refuge in long sleeves, thrown back over their shoulders, a law was passed which set a measure and a pattern for all sleeves that might ever be worn. If a few rich men indulged their fancy in the decoration of their gondolas, now that riding was out of fashion, the Council immediately determined that gondolas should be black and that they should only be gilt and adorned inside. As for freedom, if any one talked of it he was immediately tortured until he retracted all his errors, and was then promptly beheaded for fear that he should fall again into the same mistake. Nella said so, and told hideous tales of the things that had been done to innocent men in the little room behind the Council chamber in the Palace. Besides, if one talked of justice, there was Zorzi's case to prove that there was no justice at all in Venetian law. Marietta suddenly wished that she were wicked, like the Romans and the Florentines; and even when she reflected that it was a sin to wish that one were bad, she was not properly repentant, because she had a very vague notion of what wickedness really was. Righteousness seemed just now to consist in being smothered in heavy clothes, in a horribly hot room, while respectable women of all ages, fat, thin, fair, red-haired, dark, ugly and handsome, all chattered at her and overwhelmed her with nauseous flattery.

She thought of that morning in the garden, three days ago, when something she did not understand had been so near, just before disappearing for ever. Then her throat tightened and she saw indistinctly, and her lips were suddenly dry. After that, she remembered little of what happened on that evening, and by and by she was alone in her own room without a light, standing at the open window with bare feet on the cold pavement, and the night breeze stirred her hair and brought her the scent of the rosemary and lavender, while she tried to listen to the stars, as if they were speaking to her, and lost herself in her thoughts for a few moments before going to sleep.

Zorzi was still sitting in the big chair against the wall when he heard a footstep in the garden, and as he rose to look out Beroviero entered. The master was wrapped in a long cloak that covered something which he was carrying. There was no lamp in the laboratory, but the three fierce eyes of the furnace shed a low red glare in different directions. Beroviero had given orders that the night boys should not come until he sent for them.

"I thought it wiser to bring this over at night," he said, setting a small iron box on the table.

It contained the secrets of Paolo Godi, which were worth a great fortune in those times.

"Of all my possessions," said the old man, laying his hands upon the casket, "these are the most valuable. I will not hide them alone, as I might, because if any harm befell me they would be lost, and might be found by some unworthy person."

"Could you not leave them with some one else, sir?" asked Zorzi.

"No. I trust no one else. Let us hide them together to-night, for to-morrow I must leave Venice. Take up one of the large flagstones behind the annealing oven, and dig a hole underneath it in the ground. The place will be quite dry, from the heat of the oven."

Zorzi lit a lamp with a splinter of wood which he thrust into the 'bocca' of the furnace; he took a small crowbar from the corner and set to work. The laboratory contained all sorts of builder's tools, used when the furnace needed repairing. He raised one of the slabs with difficulty, turned it over, propped it with a billet of beech wood, and began to scoop out a hole in the hard earth, using a mason's trowel. Beroviero watched him, holding the box in his hands.

"The lock is not very good," he said, "but I thought the box might keep the packet from dampness."

"Is the packet properly sealed?" asked Zorzi, looking up.

"You shall see," answered the master, and he set down the box beside the lamp, on the broad stone at the mouth of the annealing oven. "It is better that you should see for yourself."

He unlocked the box and took out what seemed to be a small book, carefully tied up in a sheet of parchment. The ends of the silk cord below the knot were pinched in a broad red seal. Zorzi examined the wax.

"You sealed it with a glass seal," he observed. "It would not be hard to make another."

"Do you think it would be so easy?" asked Beroviero, who had made the seal himself many years ago.

Zorzi held the impression nearer to the lamp and scrutinised it closely.

"No one will have a chance to try," he said, with a slight gesture of indifference. "It might not be so easy."

The old man looked at him a moment, as if hesitating, and then put the packet back into the box and locked the latter with the key that hung from his neck by a small silver chain.

"I trust you," he said, and he gave the box to Zorzi, to be deposited in the hole.

Zorzi stood up, and taking a little tow from the supply used for cleaning the blow-pipes, he dipped it into the oil of the lamp and proceeded to grease the box carefully before hiding it.

"It would rust," he explained.

He laid the box in the hole and covered it with earth before placing the stone over it.

"Be careful to make the stone lie quite flat," said Angelo, bending down and gathering his gown off the floor in a bunch at his knees. "If it does not lie flat, the stone will move when the boys tread on it, and they may think of taking it up."

"It is very heavy," answered the young man. "It was as much as I could do to heave it up. You need not be afraid of the boys."

"It is not a very safe place, I fear, after all," returned Beroviero doubtfully. "Be sure to leave no marks of the crowbar, and no loose earth near it."

The heavy slab slipped into its bed with a soft thud. Zorzi took the lamp and examined the edges. One of them was a little chipped by the crowbar, and he rubbed it with the greasy tow and scattered dust over it. Then he got a cypress broom and swept the earth carefully away into a heap. Beroviero himself brought the shovel and held it close to the stones while Zorzi pushed the loose earth upon it.

"Carry it out and scatter it in the garden," said the old man.

It was the first time that he had allowed his affection for Zorzi to express itself so strongly, for he was generally a very cautious person. He took the young man's hand and held it a moment, pressing it kindly.

"It was not I who made the law against strangers, and it was not meant for men like you," he added.

Zorzi knew how much this meant from such a master and he would have found words for thanks, had he been able; but when he tried, they would not come.

"You may trust me," was all he could say.

Beroviero left him, and went down the dark corridor with the firm step of a man who knows his way without light.

In the morning, when he left the house to begin his journey, Zorzi stood by the steps with the servant to steady the gondola for him. His horses were to be in waiting in Venice, whence he was to go over to the mainland. He nodded to the young man carelessly, but said nothing, and no one would have guessed how kindly he had spoken to him on the previous night. Giovanni Beroviero took ceremonious leave of his father, his cap in his hand, bending low, a lean man, twenty years older than Marietta, with an insignificant brow and clean-shaven, pointed jaw and greedy lips. Marietta stood within the shadow of the doorway, very pale. Nella was beside her, and Giovanni's wife, and further in, at a respectful distance, the serving-people, for the master's departure was an event of importance.

The gondola pushed off when Beroviero had disappeared under the 'felse' with a final wave of the hand. Zorzi stood still, looking after his master, and Marietta came forward to the doorstep and pretended to watch the gondola also. Zorzi was the first to turn, and their eyes met. He had not expected to see her still there, and he started a little. Giovanni looked at him coldly.

"You had better go to your work," he said in a sour tone. "I suppose my father has told you what to do."

The young artist flushed, but answered quietly enough.

"I am going to my work," he said. "I need no urging."

Before he put on his cap, he bent his head to Marietta; then he passed on towards the bridge.

"That fellow is growing insolent," said Giovanni to his sister, but he was careful that Zorzi should not hear the words. "I think I shall advise our father to turn him out."

Marietta looked at her brother with something like contempt.

"Since when has our father consulted you, or taken your advice?" she asked.

"I presume he takes yours," retorted Giovanni, regretting that he could not instantly find a sharper answer, for he was not quick-witted though he was suspicious.

"He needs neither yours nor mine," said Marietta, "and he trusts whom he pleases."

"You seem inclined to defend his servants when they are insolent," answered Giovanni.

"For that matter, Zorzi is quite able to defend himself!" She turned her back on her brother and went towards the stairs, taking Nella with her.

Giovanni glanced at her with annoyance and walked along the footway in the direction of his own glass-house, glad to go back to a place where he was absolute despot. But he had been really surprised that Marietta should boldly take the Dalmatian's side against him, and his narrow brain brooded upon the unexpected circumstance. Besides the dislike he felt for the young artist, his small pride resented the thought that his sister, who was to marry a Contarini, should condescend to the defence of a servant.

Zorzi went his way calmly and spent the day in the laboratory. He was in a frame of mind in which such speeches as Giovanni's could make but little impression upon him, sensitive though he naturally was. Really great sorrows, or great joys or great emotions, make smaller ones almost impossible for the time. Men of vast ambition, whose deeds are already moving the world and making history, are sometimes as easily annoyed by trifles as a nervous woman; but he who knows that what is dearest to him is slipping from his hold, or has just been taken, is half paralysed in his sense of outward things. His own mind alone has power to give him a momentary relief.

Herein lies one of the strongest problems of human nature. We say with assurance that the mind rules the body, we feel that the spirit in some way overshadows and includes the mind. Yet if this were really true the spirit—that is, the will—should have power against bodily pain, but not against moral suffering except with some help from a higher source. But it is otherwise. If the will of ordinary human beings could hypnotise the body against material sensation, the credit due to those brave believers in all ages who have suffered cruel torments for their faith would be singularly diminished. If the mind could dominate matter by ordinary concentration of thought, a bad toothache should have no effect upon the delicate imagination of the poet, and Napoleon would not have lost the decisive battle of his life by a fit of indigestion, as has been asserted.