"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.
"One may know a song well, and yet long to hear it again and again."