in Venice and with merchants of all countries, and Beroviero had more than once sent Zorzi to Venice on business of moment.  Giovanni would come in some morning and declare that he could trust no one but Zorzi to collect certain sums of money in the city, and he would take care that the matter should keep him absent several hours.  That would be ample time in which to try the flagstones with a hammer and to turn over the right one.  Zorzi had convinced himself that it gave a hollow sound when he tapped it and that Giovanni could find it easily enough.

It was therefore folly to leave the box in its present place any longer, and he cast about in his mind for some safer spot in which to hide it.  In the meantime, fearing lest Giovanni might think of sending him out at any moment, he waited till Pasquale had brought him water in the morning, and then raised the stone, as he had done before, took the box out of the earth and hid it in the cool end of the annealing oven, while he replaced the slab.  The effort it cost him to move the latter told him plainly enough that his injury had weakened him almost as an illness might have done, but he succeeded in getting the stone into its bed at last.  He tapped it with the end of his crutch as he knelt on the floor, and the sound it gave was even more hollow than before.  He smiled as he thought how easily Giovanni would find the place, and how grievously disappointed he would be when he realised that it was empty.

It occurred at once to Zorzi that Giovanni’s first impression would naturally be that Zorzi had taken the book himself in order to use it during the master’s absence; and this thought perplexed him for a time, until he reflected that Giovanni could not accuse him of the deed without accusing himself of having searched for the box, a proceeding which his father would never forgive.  Zorzi did not intend to tell the master of his conversation with Giovanni, nor of his suspicions.  He would only say that the hiding-place had not seemed safe enough, because the stone gave a hollow sound which even the boys would notice if anything fell upon it.

But for Nella, it would be safest to give the box into Marietta’s keeping, since no one could possibly suspect that it could have found its way to her room.  At the mere thought, his heart beat fast.  It would be a reason for seeing her alone, if he could, and for talking with her.  He planned how he would send her a message by Nella, begging that he might speak to her on some urgent business of her father’s, and she would come as she had come before; they would talk in the garden, under the plane-tree, where Pasquale and Nella could see them, and he would explain what he wanted.  Then he would give her the box.  He thought of it with calm delight, as he saw it all in a beautiful vision.

But there was Nella, and there was Pasquale, the former indiscreet, the latter silent but keen-sighted, and quick-witted in spite of his slow and surly ways.  Every one knew that the book existed somewhere, and the porter and the serving-woman would guess the truth at once.  At present no one but himself knew positively where the thing was.  If he carried out his plan, three other persons would possess the knowledge.  It was not to be thought of.