Laura, none knoweth better of her beauty and none so proud of
her as I, who had thought to hide my head for the disgrace of it! But
the daring of this son of ours doth make me gay! I am ready to give thee
a compliment on thy bringing up, which often I had feared was over
frivolous. And now, he hath the Republic before him, where to choose."

"Giustinian?"

She rested both hands on his shoulders and looked full in his eyes with
the gravity of her question which was the dream of his life, and was
often tacitly touched, when they conferred together in confidence.

"Ay," he answered, "even that, the highest--by favor of San Marco--he
may win. For the grace of him maketh his head seem less."

But the shadow of the coveted Lion's paw had suddenly overclouded him
and changed his mood.

XIII

When the first faint flush of dawn was waking in the east, the fair,
sweet face of Marina of Murano was outlined for the last time, vague as
some dream memory, against the deep shadows of the interior, between the
quaint columns that framed her window.

Birds were twittering in the vines of the pergola not far away;
honeysuckles were pouring forth their fragrant morning oblations; and
the salt sea-breeze wafted her its invigorating breath as the early
tide, with slow, increasing motion, brimmed the channels that wound
through the marshes on the borders of Murano and overflowed till the
lagoon was a broad, unbroken vista of silver-gray, in whose shimmer and
radiance, when the tide was at its full, the morning stars died out. But
still they glistened dimly in the twilight of the sky to which she
raised her questioning, believing eyes. Life was always beautiful to her
loving soul; for when the shadows held a meaning deeper than she could
solve, her answer was faith; and now, that her new joy was to grow out
of a deep solitariness for the father so tenderly beloved, it was he who
upheld her courage.

"Life may not be," he said, "without some shadow; this is the shade of
thine, which, without it, were too bright. Heaven hath some purpose in
its sending, but not that it should darken our eyes to miss the joy."

"The day will be o'er-lonely in this home, my father."

"Nay, Marina, let love suffice; so shall we be always together! Shall I
not go to thee? And thou wilt come to me, bringing thy new interests and
holding thy dear heart ever pure and loyal to Venice, and thy home, and
thy God--not forgetting. For thou hast chosen with