“That was well done,” she said.  “Between us we have almost persuaded him.”

Zorzi took her willing hand and drew her to him, and she was almost as near to him as before, when she straightened herself with quick and elastic grace, and laughed again.

“No, no!” she said.  “If he were to look out and see us again, it would be too ridiculous!  Come and sit under the plane-tree in the old place.  Do you remember how you stared at the trunk and would not answer me when I tried to make you speak, ever so long ago?  Do you know, it was because you would not say—­what I wanted you to say—­that I let myself think that I could marry Messer Jacopo.  If you had only known what you were doing!”

“If I had only known!” Zorzi echoed, as they reached the place and Marietta sat down.

They were within sight of the window, but Beroviero did not heed them.  He was seated in his own chair, in deep thought, his elbows resting on the wooden arms, his fingers pressing his temples on each side, thinking of his daughter, and perhaps not quite unaware that she was talking to the only man he had ever really trusted.

“I must tell you something, Zorzi,” she was saying, as she looked up into the face she loved.  “My father told me last night what he had done yesterday.  He saw Messer Zuan Venier—­”

Zorzi showed his surprise.

“Pasquale told my father that he had been here to see you.  Very well, this Messer Zuan advised that if you could be found, you should be persuaded to go before the tribunal of the Ten of your own free will, to tell your story.  And he promised to use all his influence and that of all his friends in your favour.”

“They will not change the law for me,” Zorzi replied, in a hopeless way.

“If they could hear you, they would make a special decree,” said Marietta.  “You could tell them your story, you could even show them some of the beautiful things you have made.  They would understand that you are a great artist.  After all, my father says that one of their most especial duties is to deal with everything that concerns Murano and the glass-works.  Do you think that they will banish you, now that you have a secret of your own, and can injure us all by setting up a furnace somewhere else?  There is no sense in that!  And if you go of your own free will, they will hear you kindly, I think.  But if you stay here, they will find you in the end, and they will be very angry then, because you will have been hiding from them.”

“You are wise,” Zorzi answered.  “You are very wise.”

“No, I love you.”

She spoke softly and glanced at the open window, and then at his face.

“Truly?”

He smiled happily as he whispered his question in one word, and he was resting a hand on the trunk of the tree, just as he had been standing on the day she remembered so well.

“Ah, you know it now!” she answered, with bright and trusting eyes.