And when they could trust their footsteps they went desolately into the house together.

* * * * *

“Nay,” Girolamo had answered to every argument.  “It is for thee to remain in Venice with her child, that the Signoria be not wroth with the Ca’ Giustiniani, and for me to seek and care for her—­mayhap, if heaven be merciful, to bring her to thee again!  She cannot be far to seek.”

“In Padua!” cried Marcantonio, with sudden conviction.  “They will sleep in Padua to-night.  It was the voice of the Lady Beata!”

XXX

“Art thou sure, Marina?”

“Ay, Piero, though it were death to me; and death were sweeter——­”

Her hair lay like a wreath of snow across her forehead, from stress of the night’s vigil, her lip trembled like a grieved child’s, but in her exquisite face there was the grace of a spirit strong and tender.

He helped her silently into the gondola and steered it carefully between the pali which rose like a scattered sheaf, glowing with the colors of the Giustiniani, in the water before her palace.  And thus, in the early dawn—­unattended, with the sadness of death in her pallid face—­the lady of the Giustiniani floated away from her beautiful home—­away from happiness and love—­into a future cheerless and dim as the dawn lights that were faintly tinging the sea.  For the day was breaking, full of gloom, under a sky of clouds, and the wind blew chill from across the Lido.

She sat with her gray mantle shrouding her face, and neither of them spoke, while the gondola, under Piero’s deft guidance, quickly gained the steps of the Piazzetta and passed on to San Giorgio.  Then she touched his arm entreatingly.

“Oh, let us wait one moment before we lose sight of the palazzo!  Madre Beatissima, have them in thy keeping!”

She stretched out her hands unconsciously, with a gesture of petition, and her mantle slipped back, exposing her pallid, pain-stricken face and her whitened tresses.

Piero was startled at the havoc the night had made, for he had seen her only the day before, in answer to her summons, when she had been far more like herself.

“Santa Maria!” he exclaimed, crossing himself, and awkward under the unaccustomed sense of an overwhelming compassion.  “The Holy Mother must shrive me for breaking my vow, for if San Marco and San Teodoro would give me a place between them before the matins ring again—­mistaking me for a traitor—­I cannot take thee from Venice.  We will return,” and already the gondola was yielding to his stroke.  “Let Marcantonio bring thee himself to Rome.”

“Piero, thou hast sworn to me!  Thou shalt abide by thy promise!” she cried, seizing the oar in her trembling hand.

“Ay, Marina, I have sworn to thee,” he answered, with slow pauses, “and by our Holy Mother of San Giorgio, I will serve thee like a saint in heaven.  Yet I would thou wert in thy home again—­already thou hast broken thy heart for love of it.”