im, and I would take her
from him. Yet so he loveth her that never hath he said me nay. Naught
hath he asked for her of gold nor jewels, but only this--that she shall
not come unbidden to our home."

He spoke the last words very low and with an effort, as if they held a
prayer.

"And so--?"

"And so, sweet mother, none knoweth half so well as thou how best to
greet her whom I long to bring to thee, that she may know and love thee
as she doth love her father--with a great love, very beautiful and
tender."

She looked up as if she would have answered him, but she could not
speak.

"More than ever I think I love thee, now that I am grieving thee," he
added after a pause, in a tone so full of comprehension that it smote
her.

"Nay, Marco--nay," she said, and drew him closer, clasping her hand in
his. But they sat quite silent, while the mother's love intensified,
displacing selfishness.

He raised her hand to his lips with a new reverence. "In all this have I
asked so much of thee I think thou never canst forgive me, madre mia,
until--until thou knowest Marina!"

She touched his hair with her beautiful white hand caressingly, as she
had often done when he was a little child; but now, in this sudden
deepening of her nature, with a new yearning.

"Marco, when thou wert a babe," she said, "there was little I would not
give for thine asking. And now, when my soul is bound up in thine, I
seem not to care for the things I once sought for thee--but more for
happiness and love. Yet, if I go with thee--I seem to know thou wilt not
change to me--?" She paused, wistfully.

"Save but to prove a truer knight!" he cried radiantly. "So more than
gracious hast thou been!"

"Nay, it will be sweet to have part in thy happiness," she cried
bravely. "To-night, at sunset, will I go with thee, quite simply, in thy
gondola, to bid my daughter welcome--as our custom is. I will not fail
in honor to my Marco's bride! And since it is love that her father
asketh, I will give her this rose, for thy dear sake. But the bridal
must be soon, to make this endless talking cease. And before we leave
her--for she will learn to love me, Marco mio, and she will not take
thee from me?--I will give her the token that is fitting for a daughter
of our house."

* * * * *

Among the members of the Senate, meeting by twos and threes in the
Broglio, Marcantonio's name was often heard. "It would be well when this
marriag