“Nay, then!” he exclaimed, more brusquely than his wont, as he stretched out his hand and arrested her movement.  “What I have to say to thee importeth much.”

She flushed and paled with the struggle of the moment, then a beautiful calm came over her face; she laid down her pencil and, quietly dropping her hands in her lap, she turned to him with a smile that might have disarmed an angrier man—­it was full of tenderness, though it was shadowed by pain.

It relaxed his sternness, and, after a moment’s hesitation, he came around the table and sat down beside her.

“To-night is the fete at Ca’ Giustiniani, for the young noble of their house.”

He waited for her to speak, but she did not tremble now, though he was searching her face.

“Yes, father, I know.”

“And, Marina—­I do not understand—­and it is a grief to me——­”

She nestled to him closely and tried to slip one of her slender hands between his, which were tightly strained together in a knotted clasp, as if he would make them the outlet for some unbearable emotion.

The previous evening was the first they had not passed together since the death of Zuanino; her father had sent her word that he had matter which would occupy him alone, and all day Marina had been heavy-hearted, going at matins and at vespers quite alone to the Madonna at the Duomo, that she might take comfort and counsel.

Girolamo did not respond to her caress, though his tone softened a little as he proceeded with his tale and her arm stole round him.

“Yesterday, at the stabilimento Beroviero, we were summoned by a call of our Capo of the Ten to witness the approval that should be passed on the exhibit of that stabilimento; we all, of the Guild of Murano, were there as always.  And foremost among the productions, most marvelous for beauty, was a fabric of their lucent crystal—­thou knowest it, Marina?  My child—­how came thy face there? Thy face, Marina—­set round with lustrous pearls!”

He folded her to his breast with sudden passion, and stooped his head to her shoulder for an instant, lifting it quickly that she might not feel the sobbing of his breath which, even more than his broken words, betrayed his anguish.

“Dearest father, it was because I loved thee so much that I would not have thee suffer from my pain, that I told thee not.  Never again will I hold aught from thee.”

“Thy pain, Marina? and thy face—­and for the young noble, Giustiniani?  I do not understand.”

“Father, because I could grant him nothing and he would give me everything, and because—­because God sent the love and the Madonna hath made me feel that it would be sweet, I granted him only this—­my portrait—­because he pleaded so one could not resist; and because he said it would win the consent of all to see that he treated me like a queen!”

“Nay; one comes not in secret to steal the love of a queen.”