arer than his words.

"Do you mean that it was done on purpose, out of spite?" asked Marietta,
looking from Pasquale to Zorzi.

"It was an accident," said the latter. "I was in the main furnace room
with your brother. The blow-pipe with the hot glass slipped from a man's
hand. Your brother saw it--he will tell you."

"I have been porter here for five-and-twenty years," retorted Pasquale,
"and there have been several accidents in that time. But I never heard
of one like that."

"It was nothing else," said Zorzi.

His voice was weak. Nella had finished collecting her belongings.
Marietta saw that she could not stay any longer at present, and she went
once more to Zorzi's side.

"Let Pasquale take care of you to-day," she said. "I will come and see
how you are to-morrow morning."

"I thank you," he answered. "I thank you with all my heart. I have no
words to tell you how much."

"You need none," said she quietly. "I have done nothing. It is Nella who
has helped you."

"Nella knows that I am very grateful."

"Of course, of course!" answered the woman kindly. "You have made him
talk too much," she added, speaking to Marietta. "Let us go away. I must
prepare the barley water. It takes a long time."

"Is he to have nothing but barley water?" asked Pasquale.

"I will send him what he is to have," answered Nella, with an air of
superiority.

Marietta looked back at Zorzi from the door, and his eyes were following
her. She bent her head gravely and went out, followed by the others, and
he was alone again. But it was very different now. The spasms of pain
came back now and then, but there was rest between them, for there was a
potent anodyne in the balsam with which Nella had soaked the first
dressing. Of all possible hurts, the pain from burning is the most acute
and lasting, and the wise little woman, who sometimes seemed so foolish,
had done all that science could have done for Zorzi, even at a much
later day. He could think connectedly now, he had been able to talk; had
it been possible for him to stand, he might even have gone on for a time
with the preparations for the next experiment. Yet he felt an
instinctive certainty that he was to be lame for life.

He was not thinking of the experiments just then; he could think of
nothing but Marietta. Four or five days had passed since he had talked
with her in the garden, and she was now formally promised to Jacopo
Contarini. He wondered why she had come with Nell