The Bishop of Aquileia, first and greatest of the Venetian bishops, had incurred the displeasure of the Senate for refusing to perform the duties of his office while the Republic remained under that fulminated but unacknowledged censure, and a new prelate, of opinions approved by the Most Serene Republic, sat in the vacated see.  The Bishop of Vicenza had likewise signified his sympathy with the Holy See; and in Brescia their wandering prelate had scarcely yet received that strengthening monition of the watching Senate which was to recall him from his hiding-place and hold him steadfast in his cathedral service.

And for the Patriarch Vendramin, who had been summoned to Rome to receive the benediction of the Supreme Pontiff, but had been forbidden by the Senate to leave the Venetian domains, this episode, which was a feature of the struggle known to the whole of Venice, placed him so openly on the side of the Republic that it forbade his ministry with the Lady Marina.

But there was one so jealously guarded from all interruption and fatigue that strangers who came from far to see him were refused audience, by order of the Senate, or were received for a few moments only in some protected chamber of the Ducal Palace; for the springs of government moved at his touch, the matters which occupied him were weighty, and for these they would spare his strength.  Yet again the Senate signified a rare consideration for the Ca’ Giustiniani by permitting the attendance of their Teologo Consultore in the palazzo of the Lady Marina; for who so well could minister to her diseased mind as he who had unanswerably placed the question in its true light before all the Councils of the Republic?

She stood with bowed head and clasped hands as he approached her, her hair falling unbound, as in her maiden days, over the simply white robe which she had preferred in her illness, discarding all her jewels and all emblems of her state—­pale as a vision, like a sad dream of the beautiful Madonna del Sorriso which the Veronese had painted for that altar of the Servi at which, each morning, Fra Paolo still dutifully ministered.

“Peace be with thee and to thine house, my daughter,” said the Padre Maestro Paolo, spreading out his hands in priestly salutation as he entered the oratory of the palazzo Giustiniani, where the Lady Marina awaited him.

She had desired that the interview should take place in this chapel, which she had not visited since her illness.  A faint odor of desolation stole through the dimness of the place to meet him—­a breath from the withered rose-petals which had dropped from the golden vases upon the splendid embroidered altar-cloth and mingled with the dust of those many days which had remained guiltless of Mass or service; the altar candles were unlighted; the censer had lost its halo of mystic smoke.

“It were fitter to my mood, most Reverend Father, wert thou to scatter penitential ashes before a desecrated altar which may send no incense of praise to heaven.”