“I have ripped the arm of my doublet,” he said.  “Can you mend it for me this evening?”

“Bring it up to me now,” answered Nella.  “There is time before supper.  You can wait outside my room while I do it.  My mistress is already gone downstairs.”

“You are an angel,” observed the gondolier from below.  “The only thing you need is a husband.”

“You have guessed wrong,” answered Nella with a little laugh.  “That is the only thing I do not need.”

She disappeared, and the gondolier went round by the back of the house to the side door, in order to go upstairs.  In a quarter of an hour, while she stood in her doorway, and he in the passage without, he had told her all he knew of Giovanni’s evil intentions against Zorzi, including the few words which the Governor had spoken audibly.  The torn sleeve was an invention.

Giovanni was visibly elated at supper, a circumstance which pleased his wife but inspired Marietta with some distrust.  She had never felt any sympathy for the brother who was so much older than herself, and who took a view of things which seemed to her sordid, and she did not like to see him sitting in her father’s place, often talking of the house as if it were already his, and dictating to her upon matters of conduct as well as upon questions of taste.  Everything he said jarred on her, but as yet she had no idea that he had any plans against Zorzi, and being of a reserved character she often took no trouble to answer what he said, except to bend her head a little to acknowledge that he had said it.  When she was alone with her father, she loved to sit with him after supper in the big room, working by the clear light of the olive oil lamp, while he sat in his great chair and talked to her of his work.  He had told her far more than he realised of his secret processes as well as of his experiments, and she had remembered it, for she alone of his children had inherited his true love and understanding of the noble art of glass-making.

But now that he was away, Giovanni generally spent the evening in instructing his wife how to save money, and she listened meekly enough to what he told her, for she was a modest little woman, of colourless character, brought up to have no great opinion of herself, though her father was a rich merchant; and she looked upon her husband as belonging to a superior class.  Marietta found the conversation intolerable and she generally left the couple together a quarter of an hour after supper was over and went to her own room, where she worked a little and listened to Nella’s prattle, and sometimes answered her.  She was living in a state of half-suspended thought, and was glad to let the time pass as it would, provided it passed at all.

This evening, as usual, she bade her brother and his wife good night, and went upstairs.  Nella had learned to expect her and was waiting for her.  To her surprise, Nella shut the window as soon as she entered.