d prostrated herself and offered up the most sincere prayers
for the success of her amorous enterprise, as if Saint Francis and Saint
Anthony of Padua had power to suspend the rule of the Ten Commandments
for her benefit during the evening.

These, in few words, are the facts which had preceded her visit to
Stradella's lodging, and which resulted in the maddening disappointment
and humiliation she felt when she turned her steps homewards.

At the same hour no one at the Palazzo Pignaver had yet noticed the
absence of Ortensia and Pina. The gondolier waited by the landing at the
Frari till it was dark, and then returned to the palace, supposing that
the two had walked home and had forgotten to dismiss him, for this had
happened once or twice already. He ran his gondola in between the
painted piles by the steps of the palace, without inquiring whether his
mistress and the nurse had entered by the postern; for almost every
Venetian palace has two entrances, the main one being on the canal and
approachable only in a boat, while the other opens upon the street at
the back.

Ortensia was not missed till supper-time, and that was fully two hours
after sunset; for it was the Senator's custom to leave his niece to
herself or to Pina's company from the time when he brought her home, if
she had been out with him in the gondola, until the evening meal; and if
she asked leave to go to confession, as she had to-day, she returned
before dark and retired to her own rooms without seeing him until she
joined him at supper.

He required the most extreme punctuality of her and of all his
household. Excessive exactness in regard to time is often the delight
and the torment of people who have nothing to do of any importance. The
time which some punctual persons waste in waiting for others would be
enough to make them notable men if they used it better.

The Senator waited for Ortensia at least two minutes with equanimity,
but after that his brow darkened, he paced the room impatiently, and he
began to compose the scolding he meant to give her as soon as she came.
This occupied him satisfactorily for at least five minutes, for he was
always very nice in the choosing of his words on such occasions. His
scoldings were administered in classical Italian, and not in the
Venetian dialect of everyday life; they were constructed like short
orations, with an exordium, an exposition of the fault committed, and a
peroration, and they were followed