Marietta was told to go into the deserted building, containing the main furnaces, now extinguished, for it was not fitting that she should be seen by a patrician whom she did not know, sitting in the garden as if she were a mere serving-woman whose face needed no veil.  She ran away laughing and hid herself in the passage where she had spent moments of anguish on the night of Zorzi’s arrest, and she waved a kiss to him, when her father was not watching.

Zorzi waited at the door of the laboratory, while Beroviero waited within, standing by the table to receive his honourable visitor.  When Zorzi saw Venier’s expression of astonishment on seeing him, he smiled quietly, but offered no audible greeting, for he did not know what was expected of him.  But Venier took his hand frankly and held it a moment.

“I am glad to find you here,” he said, less indolently than he usually spoke.  “I have good news for you, if you will take my advice.”

“The master has already told me what it is,” Zorzi answered.  “I am ready to give myself up whenever you think best.  I have not words to thank you.”

“I do not like many words,” answered Venier.  “But if there is anything I dislike more, it is thanks.  I have some private business with Messer Angelo first.  Afterwards we can all three talk together.”

CHAPTER XXIV

Zorzi sat on a low bench, blackened with age, against the whitewashed wall of a small and dimly lighted room, which was little more than a cell, but was in reality the place where prisoners waited immediately before being taken into the presence of the Ten.  It was not far from the dreaded chamber in which the three Chiefs sometimes heard evidence given under torture, the door was closed and two guards paced the narrow corridor outside with regular and heavy steps, to which Zorzi listened with a beating heart.  He was not afraid, for he was not easily frightened, but he knew that his whole future life was in the balance, and he longed for the decisive moment to come.  He had surrendered on the previous day, and Beroviero had given a large bond for his appearance.

There were witnesses of all that had happened.  There was the lieutenant of the archers, with his six men, some of whom still showed traces of their misadventure.  There was Giovanni, whom the Governor had forced to appear, much against his will, as the principal accuser by the letter which had led to Zorzi’s arrest, and the letter itself was in the hands of the Council’s secretary.  But there was also Pasquale, who had seen Zorzi go away quietly with the soldiers, and who could speak for his character; and Angelo Beroviero was there to tell the truth as far as he knew it.