ce the oil was so largely provided by fines for delinquencies!

[8] To light the Madonna.

With an easy conscience, also, he had helped himself to the requisite
funds for their journey, amply estimated, from the treasury of the
Nicolotti, which was in his keeping; and his reasoning savored of
Venetian subtlety, with a hint of his toso training. Had not the Lady of
the Giustiniani offered to guarantee the funds necessary for the
assessments of the state, when Piero, doubtful of their resources, would
have declined the position of gastaldo grande, cumbered as it was with
the uncomfortable requirement that the chief should be personally
responsible for all dues and taxes levied upon the traghetti? Piero was
not the first gastaldo who had wished to escape an honor that weighed so
heavily, and a very serious penalty was already decreed for such
contempt of office by that tribunal tireless in vigilance.

So, without compunction, Piero had taken the needful, sure that when he
returned Marina's husband or her father would repay it.

_Could_ he return--after helping a patrician to escape from Venice into
the heart of the country with which the Republic was at war? It looked
doubtful even to Piero, with his indomitable temperament, but he wasted
no sentiment upon this question; for if he might not return there were
other countries in which a man could live. Or, should he be pursued and
lighted upon by the far-seeing eye of the Ten, he could die but once and
get into trouble no more! He crossed himself decorously as he dismissed
the matter; but it was not an event that he could change by pondering.

There was another question that interested him more keenly at this
moment; when Messer Girolamo should know that his daughter was not in
Venice, could he fail to comprehend the hint he had given a few hours
before, and would he not follow them to Rome, as Piero devoutly hoped,
for he wished to leave Marina in her father's care. It was not easy to
predict what Messer Girolamo might do--the case had been too doubtful
for a more explicit confession, and Piero had been wise in his
generation.

He turned now to Marina with the question: "If thou hadst told thy
father of thy wish mayhap he might have come with thee?"

She shook her head sadly and made no answer, but after awhile she said,
"He is like the others. They cannot understand the need, for to them the
Madonna hath not revealed the desperate state of Venice."

"Yet thou kno