“Oh, you have always been kind to me, good to me, dear to me,” she went on quickly.  “It is only in this that you will not understand.  Would it not hurt you a little to feel that you had sent me to a sort of living death from which I could never come back to life?  That I was imprisoned for ever among people who looked down upon me and only tolerated me for my fortune’s sake?  Yet that would be the very least part of it all!  I could bear all that, if it were for any good.  But to become the creature, the possession, the plaything of a man I do not love, when I love another with all my heart—­oh, no, no, no!  You cannot ask me that!”

His anger had slowly subsided, and he was listening now, not because she had him in her power, but because what she said was true.  For he was a just and honourable man.

“I wish that you might have loved any man but Zorzi,” he said, almost as if speaking to himself.

“And why another?” she asked, following up her advantage instantly.  “You would have had me marry a Trevisan, perhaps, or the son of any of the other great glass-makers?  Is there one of them who can compare with Zorzi as an artist, let alone as a man?  Look at those things he has made, there, on the table!  Is there a man living who could make one of them?  Not you, yourself; you know it better than I do!”

“No,” answered Beroviero.  “That is true.  Nor is there any one who could make the glass he used for them without the secrets that are in the book—­and more too, for it is better than my own.”

Marietta looked at him in surprise.  This was something she had not known.

“Is it not your glass?” she asked.

“It is better.  He must have added something to the composition set down in the book.”

“You believe that although the book itself is safe, he has made use of it.”

“Yes.  I cannot see how it could be otherwise.”

“Was the book sealed?”

“Yes, and looked in an iron box.  Here is the key.  I always wear it.”

He drew out the small iron key, and showed it to her.

“If you find the box locked, and the seals untouched, will you believe that Zorzi has not opened the manuscript?” asked Marietta.

“Yes,” answered Beroviero after a moment’s thought.  “I showed him the seal, and I remember that he said a man might make one like it.  But I should know by the wax.  I am sure I could tell whether it had been tampered with.  Yes, I should believe he had not opened the book, if I found it as I left it.”

“Then you will be convinced that Zorzi is altogether innocent of all the charges Giovanni made against him.  Is that true?”

“Yes.  If he has learnt the art in spite of the law, that is my fault, not his.  He was unwise in selling the beaker to Giovanni.  But what is that, after all?”

“Promise me then,” said Marietta, laying her hand upon her father’s arm, “promise me that if Zorzi comes back, he shall be safe, and that you will trust him as you always have.”