“How long doth the Master remain away?”

“So long as it may please the Lady Marina, who hath need of change.  And if I return not,” Girolamo resumed, after a moment’s pause which gave solemnity to his words, “my will shall be found filed with the Avvogadori del Commun; and thou, Stino, shalt answer to the summons they will send thee—­if I come no more.”

“Master!” cried the faithful Stino, greatly troubled, for these preparations filled him with dread, and were strange indeed for so old a man who had never yet left Venice for a night.  “Life is other than we know it away from Venice; and the heart of us goes mourning for the sight and sound of the sea and the color of our skies!”

“Nay, Stino, I have said it,” his master answered, unmoved by his imploring eyes.

“When goest thou—­that all may be ready?”

“Now; ere the dawn!” Girolamo cried with sudden resolution.  “I would say my Ave Maria in the chapel of the Lady Marina.  Rouse the gondolier, and lift the curtain that I may see how soon the day cometh.”

“Master, dear Master,” said Stino tenderly, as he drew the heavy draperies aside.  “Already the sun is high, and the household hath been, these many hours, awake.”

“So!” Girolamo answered with deep gravity, for the battle had been longer than he had dreamed, yet with his habitual control.  “I knew not the time—­my thoughts held me.  Stino, if I return not, may the saints bless thee for all thou hast been to me since the Lady Marina hath dwelt in the palazzo Giustiniani.  And in my will thou art not forgotten.”

As Girolamo issued from his own portal, closely followed by Stino and the other superintendents of the great stabilimento who were filled with foreboding at this sudden and surprising decision of their good master, several gondolas wearing the colors of the Giustiniani floated into the waterway from the broad lagoon; and with them, like a flock of sea-birds in their habits of gray and their cowls of white, came the sisters of San Donato, returning from that early chanted Mass at the palazzo Giustiniani which had been a dream of the Lady Marina’s happier days.

The young Senator had urged his boatmen to feverish speed, and his own gondola was far in advance of the train.  He bounded from his bark the moment it neared the steps, and, rushing blindly toward the dwelling, encountered his father-in-law on the threshold.

“She is here—­Marina?” he questioned, half crazed with grief; and, forgetful of the usual courtesies, would have pushed him aside to enter.  “I have come with her maidens and her child to take her home.  Let me go to her!”

And, as Girolamo stood, dumb and dazed, “I beseech thee—­conceal her not!”

Looking into each other’s faces for one anguished moment, they knew, without need of further speech, that she had gone from them both.

Girolamo gave a great and bitter cry, “My son!” folding his arms about the younger man in measureless grief and compassion.