rini, until she had let her hand linger in Zorzi's. But after that,
one hour had not passed before she felt that she was living between two
alternatives that seemed almost equally terrible, and of which she must
choose the one or the other within two months. She must either marry
Contarini and never see Zorzi again, or she must refuse to be married
and face the tremendous consequences of her unheard-of wilfulness, her
father's anger, the just resentment of all the Contarini family, the
humiliation which her brothers would heap upon her, because, in the code
of those days, she would have brought shame on them and theirs. In those
times such results were very real and inevitable when a girl's formal
promise of marriage was broken, though she herself might never have been
consulted.

It was no wonder that Marietta was sleepless at night, and spent long
hours of the day sitting listless by her window without so much as
threading a score of beads from the little basket that stood beside her.
Nella came and went often, looked at her, and shook her head with a wise
smile.

"It is the thought of marriage," said the woman of the people to
herself. "She pines and grows pale now, because she is thinking that she
must leave her father's house so soon, and she is afraid to go among
strangers. But she will be happy by and by, like the swallows in
spring."

Nella remembered how frightened she herself had been when she was
betrothed to her departed Vito, and she was thereby much comforted as to
Marietta's condition. But she said nothing, after Marietta had coldly
repelled her first attempt to talk of the marriage, though she forgave
her mistress's frigid order to be silent, telling herself that no
right-minded young girl could possibly be natural and sweet tempered
under the circumstances. She was more than compensated for what might
have seemed harshness, by something that looked very much like a
concession. Marietta had not gone back to the laboratory since the
discovery of the new glass, and a week had passed since then.

Nella went every other day and did all that was necessary for Zorzi's
recovery. Each time she came he asked her about Marietta, in a rather
formal tone, as was becoming when he spoke of his master's daughter,
but hoping that Nella might have some message to deliver, and he was
more and more disappointed as he realised that Marietta did not mean to
send him any. She had gone away on that morning with a sort of