would be perfect happiness to be burned with slow fire.  He did not mean to do Contarini any harm.  Perhaps Marietta already loved the man, and was glad she was to marry him.  No one could have told what she felt, even from that one flashing look she had given her father.  Zorzi did not try to understand her yet; he only loved her, and she was his master’s daughter, and if his master found out his secret it would be a very evil day for him.  So he poked the fire with his iron rod, and set his teeth, and said nothing, while old Beroviero moved about the room.

“Zorzi,” said the master presently, “I meant you to hear what I said to my daughter.”

“I heard, sir,” answered the young man, rising respectfully, and waiting for more.

“Remember the name you heard,” said Beroviero.

If the matter had been any other in the world, Zorzi would have smiled at the master’s words, because they bade him do just what Marietta had forbidden.  The one said “forget,” the other “remember.”  For the first time in his life Zorzi found it easier to obey his lady’s father than herself.  He bent his head respectfully.

“I trust you, Zorzi,” continued Beroviero, slowly mixing some materials in a little wooden trough on the table.  “I trust you, because I must trust some one in order to have a safe means of communicating with Casa Contarini.”

Again Zorzi bent his head, but still he said nothing.

“These five years you have worked with me in private,” the old man went on, “and I know that you have not told what you have seen me do, though there are many who would pay you good money to know what I have been about.”

“That is true,” answered Zorzi.

“Yes.  I therefore judge that you are one of those unusual beings whom God has sent into the world to be of use to their fellow-creatures instead of a hindrance.  For you possess the power of holding your tongue, which I had almost believed to be extinct in the human race.  I am going to send you on an errand to Venice, to Jacopo Cantarini.  If I sent any one from my house, all Murano would know it to-morrow morning, but I wish no one here to guess where you have been.”

“No one shall see me,” answered Zorzi.  “Tell me only where I am to go.”

“You know Venice well by this time.  You must have often passed the house of the Agnus Dei.”

“By the Baker’s Bridge?”

“Yes.  Go there alone, to-night and ask for Messer Jacopo; and if the porter inquires your business, say that you have a message and a token from a certain Angelo.  When you are admitted and are alone with Messer Jacopo, tell him from me to go and stand by the second pillar on the left in Saint Mark’s, on Sunday next, an hour before noon, until he sees me; and within a week after that, he shall have the answer; and bid him be silent, if he would succeed.”

“Is that all, sir?”

“That is all.  If he gives you any message in answer, deliver it to me to-morrow, when my daughter is not here.”