“Will you come here?” she asked softly, looking towards him with half-closed eyes.

He slipped the knife back into his pouch and walked quickly to her side.  She looked down again, threading the coloured beads that half filled a small basket in her lap.

“May I ask you a question?” Her voice had a little persuasive hesitation in it, as if she wished him to understand that the answer would be a favour of which she was anything but certain.

“Anything you will,” said Zorzi.

“Provided I do not ask about my father’s secret!” A little laughter trembled in the words.  “You were so severe yesterday, you know.  I am almost afraid ever to ask you anything again.”

“I will answer as well as I can.”

“Well—­tell me this.  Did you really take the boat and go to Venice last night?”

“Yes.”

Marietta’s hand moved with the needle among the beads, but she did not thread one.  Nella had been right, after all.

“Why did you go, Zorzi?” The question came in a lower tone that was full of regret.

“The master sent me,” answered Zorzi, looking down at her hair, and wishing that he could see her face.

His wish was almost instantly fulfilled.  After the slightest pause she looked up at him with a lovely smile; yet when he saw that rare look in her face, his heart sank suddenly, instead of swelling and standing still with happiness, and when she saw how sad he was, she was grave with the instant longing to feel whatever he felt of pain or sorrow.  That is one of the truest signs of love, but Zorzi had not learned much of love’s sign-language yet, and did not understand.

“What is it?” she asked almost tenderly.

He turned his eyes from her and rested one hand against the trunk of the plane-tree.

“I do not understand,” he said slowly.

“Why are you so sad?  What is it that is always making you suffer?”

“How could I tell you?” The words were spoken almost under his breath.

“It would be very easy to tell me,” she said.  “Perhaps I could help you—­”

“Oh no, no, no!” he cried with an accent of real pain.  “You could not help me!”

“Who knows?  Perhaps I am the best friend you have in the world, Zorzi.”

“Indeed I believe you are!  No one has ever been so good to me.”

“And you have not many friends,” continued Marietta.  “The workmen are jealous of you, because you are always with my father.  My brothers do not like you, for the same reason, and they think that you will get my father’s secret from him some day, and outdo them all.  No—­you have not many friends.”

“I have none, but you and the master.  The men would kill me if they dared.”

Marietta started a little, remembering how the workmen had looked at him in the morning, when he came out.

“You need not be afraid,” he added, seeing her movement.  “They will not touch me.”