And when they could trust their footsteps they went desolately into the house together.
* * * * *
"Nay," Girolamo had answered to every argument. "It is for thee to remain in Venice with her child, that the Signoria be not wroth with the Ca' Giustiniani, and for me to seek and care for her—mayhap, if heaven be merciful, to bring her to thee again! She cannot be far to seek."
"In Padua!" cried Marcantonio, with sudden conviction. "They will sleep in Padua to-night. It was the voice of the Lady Beata!"
XXX
"Art thou sure, Marina?"
"Ay, Piero, though it were death to me; and death were sweeter——"
Her hair lay like a wreath of snow across her forehead, from stress of the night's vigil, her lip trembled like a grieved child's, but in her exquisite face there was the grace of a spirit strong and tender.
He helped her silently into the gondola and steered it carefully between the pali which rose like a scattered sheaf, glowing with the colors of the Giustiniani, in the water before her palace. And thus, in the early dawn—unattended, with the sadness of death in her pallid face—the lady of the Giustiniani floated away from her beautiful home—away from happiness and love—into a future cheerless and dim as the dawn lights that were faintly tinging the sea. For the day was breaking, full of gloom, under a sky of clouds, and the wind blew chill from across the Lido.
She sat with her gray mantle shrouding her face, and neither of them spoke, while the gondola, under Piero's deft guidance, quickly gained the steps of the Piazzetta and passed on to San Giorgio. Then she touched his arm entreatingly.