"And this is verily thy mission from Venice—and to me?"
"I have spoken," he said, "but the time is short: thou mayest not delay to reply—Venice hath so decreed."
"My people love me," she pleaded, with a gasp. "I have only them to live for!"
"Thou hast only them, if thou wilt perforce give up thine own," he answered readily; "it is of thine own choice."
"What meanest thou?" she questioned, grasping his arm in terror: "Zorzi!"
He shook off her touch and answered her unmoved. "The choice will be thine, between thy people of Cyprus—who love thee, thou sayest—and thy people of Venice—we of the Casa Cornaro and the Signoria, whom thou wilt offend and who have spent themselves upon thee. They will leave thee to thine own devices, withdrawing every galley from thy Cyprian coasts."
She gave a low moan, pressing her trembling hands to her brow, as if brain-weary from perplexity; then she turned to her brother again with the exclamation:
"How shouldst thou so utterly desert me, Zorzi—thou, and my people whom I love!"
"The mercy of the Republic is at an end," he assured her uncompromisingly, "and for the Casa Cornaro—thou dost mistake, which seemeth easy for thee; it is rather thou who wilt disgrace me—thy brother, with his honorable pride in his house and his most noble country. For him and his children there will no longer be honors, nor any favor of the Senate: upon thy brother, who doth so faithfully counsel thee and from his heart, will fall the enmity of the Republic who hath forbidden him to fail in his mission. And what is left for a patrician who hath suffered exile and confiscation, but death and the extinction of his house? This will be thy doing."
She sprang up, attempting to reach a silken cord that swung upon the wall near her; but Cornaro raised his hand above her and lightly tossed it aside.