e palazzo Giustiniani, where the Lady Marina
awaited him.

She had desired that the interview should take place in this chapel,
which she had not visited since her illness. A faint odor of desolation
stole through the dimness of the place to meet him--a breath from the
withered rose-petals which had dropped from the golden vases upon the
splendid embroidered altar-cloth and mingled with the dust of those many
days which had remained guiltless of Mass or service; the altar candles
were unlighted; the censer had lost its halo of mystic smoke.

"It were fitter to my mood, most Reverend Father, wert thou to scatter
penitential ashes before a desecrated altar which may send no incense of
praise to heaven."

"Nay, my daughter; love and faith may still minister, and God, the
Unchangeable, accept that service from every altar in Venice! 'The
sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit,' it is written in the Holy Book
which God hath granted for the comfort of His people. May peace indeed
bring thee its benediction--the more that thy need is great."

Was there some strange power of resistance in that fragile, drooping
figure which made it difficult to rehearse the argument for Venice with
his accustomed mastery?

She listened silently while the learned Counsellor patiently explained
that the sentence of Rome was unjust, therefore not incurred and not to
be observed by priests nor people; wherefore it was the duty of the
Prince to prevent its execution--of the Prince who, more than any
private citizen, is bound to fear God, to be zealous in the faith and
reverent toward the priests who are permitted to stand in the place of
Christ for the enforcement of his teaching only; but it is also the more
the duty of the Prince to eschew hypocrisy and superstition, to preserve
his own dignity, and maintain his state in the exercise of the true
religion.

But there was no acquiescence in her eyes.

"I thank thee, most Reverend Father, for thy patient teaching," she
said; "but I lack the learning to make it helpful. Fra Francesco was
more simple, and he hath taught me by no arguments; but he, for the
exercise of the true religion, hath found it needful to quit Venice, and
doth make his pilgrimage to Rome, barefooted, that he may pray the Holy
Father, of his grace, to lift this curse from our people."

"There is that in her face which maketh argument useless," Fra Paolo
said low to his friend Santorio, for he was himself no mean physician,