n more danger than he. The situation
was desperate and the time short. She was still at the window, looking
in.

"You know your way to the main furnace rooms," Zorzi said quickly, but
with great coolness. "Run in there, and stand still in the dark till
everything is quiet. Then slip out and get home as quickly as
possible."

"But you? What will become of you?" asked Marietta in an agony of
anxiety.

"If they do not take me at once, they will search all the buildings and
will find you," answered Zorzi. "I will go and meet them, while you are
hiding."

He opened the door beside the window and put his crutch forward upon the
path. At the same moment the sound of a tremendous blow echoed down the
dark corridor. The moon was low but had not set and there was still
light in the garden.

"Quickly!" Zorzi exclaimed. "They are breaking down the door."

But Marietta clung to him almost savagely, when he tried to push her in
the direction of the main furnace rooms on the other side of the garden.

"I will not leave you," she cried. "They shall take me with you,
wherever you are going!"

She grasped his hand with both her hands, and then, as he moved, she
slipped her arm round him. At the street door the pounding blows
succeeded each other in quick succession, but apparently without effect.

Zorzi saw that he must make her understand her extreme danger. He took
hold of her wrist with a quiet strength that recalled her to herself,
and there was a tone of command in his voice when he spoke.

"Go at once," he said. "It will be worse for both of us if you are found
here. They will hang me for stealing the master's daughter as well as
his secrets. Go, dear love, go! Good-bye!"

He kissed her once, and then gently pushed her from him. She understood
that she must obey, and that if he spoke of his own danger it was for
the sake of her good name. With a gesture of despair she turned and left
him, crossed the patch of light without looking back, and disappeared
into the shadows beyond. She was safe now, for he would go and meet the
archers, opening the door to give himself up. Using his crutch he swung
himself along into the dark corridor without another moment's
hesitation.

But matters did not turn out as he expected. When the force came down
the footway from the dilution of San Piero, Giovanni was still talking
to his wife about household economies and censuring what he called the
reckless extravagance of his father's hou