“If it be true,” she said, “the end of pain is reached, and he hath won his happiness.—­Why cometh not my Marco?”

A gondola of the Nicolotti detached itself from a group of serenaders just above the palace, was caught for a few moments among the pali before the Ca’ Giustiniani, and then floated leisurely down toward the Piazzetta.  She noted it idly while she sat waiting for Marco, for in the gondola there was a graceful figure, closely wrapped, clasping her mantle yet more closely with a hand that was white and slender enough for one of the nobility; yet the gondolier wore the black sash of the Nicolotti with the great hat of a bravo shading his face.  “It is some intrigue,” she said, almost unconsciously, in the midst of her sad dreaming.

“Oh, Marco, thou art come!  It hath been long without thee.”

“The Senate is but just dismissed,” he answered, smiling fondly at the eagerness which gave to her pale face a passing flush of health.  “But why is the Lady Beata not with thee?” he questioned abruptly.

“She is in the chapel, making it fair with flowers.”

“Thou knowest it, Marina?”

“She came to me with a question but a little while ago, when Marconino was with me—­and I wished to be alone.  Marco, he was so beautiful!  And the day has been a dream; I wished for no one but for thee alone.”

He held her hand in a mute caress, but with preoccupation, while his eyes wandered back to the Piazzetta searchingly.

“It is strange,” he muttered to himself, still watching from the end of the balcony.  “It was an echo of the Lady Beata’s voice that startled me, crossing the Piazzetta saying two words only—­’In Padua.’”

Then rousing himself, he turned brightly to his wife.  “Carina, I have news for thee, for the time hath been momentous for us in Venice.  Di Gioiosa hath gone forward, these many days, with terms from Venice; and soon, it is thought, there will be peace.”

Terms from Venice to Rome!—­but the words did not move her from her resolve to let no shadow of their difference mar the beauty of this night.

She looked at him wearily.  “It is ever the same,” she said, “through this long, dreary year—­ever the same!  Let us forget it all for this one night.  Let us talk together of our Marconino!”

And as if there had been no questions—­no interdict—­no pain—­while the night sounds died into silence and the moon withdrew her glamor and left them alone to the solemn mystery of the starlight, they sat and talked together of love and their little one and their hopes for him, and of things that lie too deep for utterance—­save by one to one—­far into that beautiful Venetian night, with the odor of flowers and incense blown up to them on the breath of the sea.

XXIX