But the shadow of the coveted Lion’s paw had suddenly overclouded him and changed his mood.

XIII

When the first faint flush of dawn was waking in the east, the fair, sweet face of Marina of Murano was outlined for the last time, vague as some dream memory, against the deep shadows of the interior, between the quaint columns that framed her window.

Birds were twittering in the vines of the pergola not far away; honeysuckles were pouring forth their fragrant morning oblations; and the salt sea-breeze wafted her its invigorating breath as the early tide, with slow, increasing motion, brimmed the channels that wound through the marshes on the borders of Murano and overflowed till the lagoon was a broad, unbroken vista of silver-gray, in whose shimmer and radiance, when the tide was at its full, the morning stars died out.  But still they glistened dimly in the twilight of the sky to which she raised her questioning, believing eyes.  Life was always beautiful to her loving soul; for when the shadows held a meaning deeper than she could solve, her answer was faith; and now, that her new joy was to grow out of a deep solitariness for the father so tenderly beloved, it was he who upheld her courage.

“Life may not be,” he said, “without some shadow; this is the shade of thine, which, without it, were too bright.  Heaven hath some purpose in its sending, but not that it should darken our eyes to miss the joy.”

“The day will be o’er-lonely in this home, my father.”

“Nay, Marina, let love suffice; so shall we be always together!  Shall I not go to thee?  And thou wilt come to me, bringing thy new interests and holding thy dear heart ever pure and loyal to Venice, and thy home, and thy God—­not forgetting.  For thou hast chosen with thy whole heart, my daughter?” since she had not answered.  “Thou dost not fear thyself?”

“Dearest father,” she had said, hiding her face in his tender embrace, “all of my heart which is not thine is wholly his—­only my happiness is too great.”

“Nay, daughter, since it is of God’s own sending; take all the joy and grieve not.”

“Only at leaving thee.”

“I would not keep thee here, to leave thee mourning and alone when my days are closed.”

“Father!”

“Not to sadden thee, my child, but to show thee that life is linked to life—­God wills it so.  Thou and I are bound to that which has been and to that which is to be.  We do not stand alone to choose.  The sweetness of our life together should make it easier for me to yield thee to the fuller life which calleth thee.  We must each bear our part in the beauty of the whole.  For perfect love, there must be sacrifice.”