“I think I shall always do just what I think right,” said Marietta quietly, as if to herself.

“Lord!” cried Nella.  “The young lady is going mad!”

Nella was gathering together the remains of the things she had brought.  Exhausted by the pain he had suffered, and by the efforts he had made to hide it, Zorzi lay on his back, looking with half-closed eyes at the graceful outline of the girl’s figure, and vaguely wishing that she would never move, and that he might be allowed to die while quietly gazing at her.

“Lady,” said Pasquale at last, and rather timidly, “I will take good care of him.  I will get him crutches to-morrow.  I will come in the daytime and keep the fire burning for him.”

“It would be far better to let it go out,” observed Nella, with much sense.

“But the experiments!” cried Zorzi, suddenly coming back from his dream.  “I have promised the master to carry them out.”

“You see what comes of your glass-working,” retorted Nella, pointing to his bandaged foot.

“How did it happen?” asked Marietta suddenly.  “How did you do it?”

“It was done for him,” said Pasquale, “and may the Last Judgment come a hundred times over for him who did it!”

His intention was clearer than his words.

“Do you mean that it was done on purpose, out of spite?” asked Marietta, looking from Pasquale to Zorzi.

“It was an accident,” said the latter.  “I was in the main furnace room with your brother.  The blow-pipe with the hot glass slipped from a man’s hand.  Your brother saw it—­he will tell you.”

“I have been porter here for five-and-twenty years,” retorted Pasquale, “and there have been several accidents in that time.  But I never heard of one like that.”

“It was nothing else,” said Zorzi.

His voice was weak.  Nella had finished collecting her belongings.  Marietta saw that she could not stay any longer at present, and she went once more to Zorzi’s side.

“Let Pasquale take care of you to-day,” she said.  “I will come and see how you are to-morrow morning.”

“I thank you,” he answered.  “I thank you with all my heart.  I have no words to tell you how much.”

“You need none,” said she quietly.  “I have done nothing.  It is Nella who has helped you.”

“Nella knows that I am very grateful.”

“Of course, of course!” answered the woman kindly.  “You have made him talk too much,” she added, speaking to Marietta.  “Let us go away.  I must prepare the barley water.  It takes a long time.”

“Is he to have nothing but barley water?” asked Pasquale.

“I will send him what he is to have,” answered Nella, with an air of superiority.