a, and he remembered
her earnest offer of friendship. She meant to show him that she was
still in earnest, he supposed. It had been perfect happiness to feel her
cool young hand on his forehead, to press it in his own. No one could
take that from him, as long as he lived. He remembered it through the
horrible pain it had soothed, and it was better than the touch of an
angel, for it was the touch of a loving woman. But he did not know that,
and be fancied that if she had ever guessed that he loved her, she
would not have come to him now. She would feel that the mere thought in
his heart was an offence. And besides, she was to marry Contarini, and
she was not of the kind that would promise to marry one man and yet
encourage love in another. It was well, thought Zorzi, that she had
never suspected the truth.

When Marietta reached her room again she listened patiently to Nella's
scolding and warning, for she did not hear a word the good woman said to
her. Nella brushed the dust from the silk mantle and from Marietta's
white skirt very industriously, lest it should betray the secret to
Giovanni or any other member of the household. For they had escaped
being seen, even when they came back.

Nella scolded on in a little sing-song voice, with many rising
inflections. In her whole life, she said, she had never connived at
anything more utterly shameless than this! She was humble, indeed, and
of no account in the world, but if she had run out in the middle of the
day to visit a young man when she was betrothed to her poor Vito,
blessed soul, and the Lord remember him, her poor Vito would have gone
to her father, might the Lord refresh his soul, and would have said,
"What ways are these? Do you think I will marry a girl who runs about in
this fashion?" That was what Vito would have said. And he would have
said, "Give me back the gold things I gave your daughter, and let me go
and find a wife who does not run about the city." And it would have
been well said. Did Marietta suppose that an educated person like the
lord Jacopo Contarini would be less particular about his bride's manners
than that good soul Vito? Not that Vito had been ignorant. Nella should
have liked any one to dare to say that she had married an ignorant man!
And so forth. And so on.

Marietta heard the voice without listening to the words, and the gentle,
half-complaining, half-reproving tone was rather soothing than
otherwise. She sat by the half-closed windo