“Is it?  We shall see.  You are very brave, and you are very, very obstinate, but you are not very sensible, for you are only a man, after all.  In the first place, do you imagine that even if Giovanni were to spend a whole week in this room, he would think of looking for the box amongst the broken glass?”

“No, I do not think he would,” answered Zorzi.  “That was sensible of me, at all events.”  She laughed.

“Oh, you are clever enough!  I never said that you were not that.  I only said that you had no sense.  As for instance, since you are sure that my brother cannot find the box, why do you wish to stay here?”

“I promised your father that I would.  I will keep my promise, at all costs.”

“In which of two ways shall you be of more use to my father?  If you hide in a safe place till he comes home, and if you then come back to him and help him as before?  Or if you allow yourself to be thrown into prison, and tried, and perhaps hanged or banished, for something you never did?  And if any harm comes to you, what do you think would become of me?  Do you see?  I told you that you had no common sense.  Now you will believe me.  But if all this is not enough to make you go, I have another plan, which you cannot possibly oppose.”

“What is that?” asked Zorzi.

“I will go alone.  I will cross the bridge, and take the skiff, and row myself over to Venice and from Venice I will get to the mainland.”

“You could not row the skiff,” objected Zorzi, amused at the idea.  “You would fall off, or upset her.”

“Then I should drown,” returned Marietta philosophically.  “And you would be sorry, whether you thought it was your fault or not.  Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Very well.  If you will not promise me faithfully to escape to the mainland to-night, I swear to you by all that you and I believe in, and most of all by our love for each other, that I will do what I said, and run away from my father’s house, to-night.  But you will not let me go alone, will you?”

“No!”

“There!  You see!  Of course you would not let me go alone, me, a poor weak girl, who have never taken a step alone in my life, until to-night!  And they say that the world is so wicked!  What would become of me if you let me go away alone?”

“If I thought you meant to do that!”

He laughed again, and drew her to him, and would have kissed her; but she held him back and looked at him earnestly.

“I mean it,” she said.  “That is what I will do.  I swear that I will.  Yes—­now you may.”

And she kissed him of her own accord, but quickly withdrew herself from his arms again.

“You have your choice,” she said, “and you must choose quickly, for I have been here too long—­it must be nearly half an hour since I left my room, and Nella is waiting for me, thinking that I am with my brother and his wife.  Promise me to do what I ask, and I will go back, and when my father comes home I will tell him the whole troth.  That is the wisest thing, after all.  Or, I will go with you, if you will take me as I am.”