He sighed and leaned back, looking at the wall.  Marietta dropped her cloak beside the mantle on the bench and began to walk up and down before him, trying to begin her speech.  But she could not find any words.

“Speak, child,” said her father.  “What has happened?  It seems to me that I could bear almost anything now.”

She stood still a moment before him, still hesitating.  She now saw that he had suffered more than she had suspected, doubtless owing to Zorzi’s arrest and disappearance, and she knew that what she meant to tell him would hurt him much more.

“Father,” she began at last, with a great effort, “I know that what I am going to say will displease you very, very much.  I am sorry—­I wish it were not—­”

Suddenly her set speech broke down.  She fell on her knees and took his hands, looking up beseechingly to his face.

“Forgive me!” she cried.  “Oh, for God’s sake forgive me!  I cannot marry Jacopo Contarini!”

Beroviero had not expected that.  He sat upright in the chair, in his amazement, and instinctively tried to draw his hands out of hers, but she held them fast, gazing earnestly up to him.  His look was not angry, nor cold, nor did he even seem hurt.  He was simply astonished beyond all measure by the enormous audacity of what she said.  As yet he did not connect it with anything else.

“I think you must be mad!”

That was all he could find to say.

CHAPTER XX

Marietta shook her head.  She still knelt at her father’s feet, holding his hands.

“I am not mad,” she said.  “I am in earnest.  I cannot marry him.  It is impossible.”

“You must marry him,” answered Beroviero.  “You are betrothed to him, and it would be an insult to his family to break off the marriage now.  Besides, you have no reason to give, not the shadow of a reason.”

Marietta dropped his hands and rose to her feet lightly.  She had expected a terrific outburst of anger, which would gradually subside, after which she hoped to find words with which to influence him.  But like many hot-tempered men, he was sometimes unexpectedly calm at critical moments, as if he were really able to control his nature when he chose.  She now almost wished that he would break out in a rage, as women sometimes hope we may, for they know it is far easier to deal with an angry man than with a determined one.

“I will not marry him,” she said at last, with strong emphasis, and almost defiantly.

“My child,” Beroviero answered gravely, “you do not know what you are saying.”

“I do!” cried Marietta with some indignation.  “I have thought of it a long time.  I was very wrong not to make up my mind from the beginning, and I ask your forgiveness.  In my heart I always knew that I could not do it in the end, and I should have said so at once.  It was a great mistake.”