out of
compassion for Marina's priestly proclivities when she lay critically
ill, had made it possible for the Jesuits to remove those coffers of
treasure which, in spite of strictest orders to the contrary,
accompanied them on their flight from Venice; it was not that he took
part against Venice in the quarrel, but that the penalty of exile seemed
to him sufficient, especially as Marina had a weakness for priests; and
he could be generous in his use of power, though a man less daring would
not have risked the freak. But there was a masterful pleasure in
outwitting the Signoria and the Ten, lessened only by the consciousness
that he must keep this triumph to himself, and Piero also knew how to
hold his tongue--for discretion was a needful grace in that strange time
of barbaric lawlessness shrouded in a more than Eastern splendor.

But even Piero sometimes quickened his step as he passed the beautiful
sea facade of the Ducal Palace, whose rose-tinted walls seemed made only
to reflect sunshine; for perchance he guessed the name of that victim
who hung with covered face between the columns, bearing in bold letters
on his breast, by way of warning, the nature of the crime for which he
paid such awful penalty--some crime against the State. "To-day," said
Piero to himself, "it is this poor devil who cried to me to shield him
when I was forced to denounce him to the Signoria; to-morrow, for some
caprice of their Excellencies--it may be Piero Salin!"

But the gastaldo relapsed easily into such philosophy as he knew. "By
the blessed San Marco and San Teodoro themselves!" he was ready to cry,
as he reached his gondola, "there must always be a last 'to-morrow'!"

XXV

Life had begun to move again, with slow, clogged wheels, in the Ca'
Giustiniani since that sudden favorable change had come to the Lady
Marina. Her husband was no longer excused from attendance in the Council
Halls of the Republic, and whether to quicken his interest in the
affairs of the government or because, in due course, the time had come
when a young noble so full of promise should take a prominent place in
her councils, he was now constantly called upon to fill important
offices in transient committees. Certainly there was some strange,
ubiquitous power in that watchful governmental eye; and in the Broglio
it had been whispered that if the young Senator were not held constant
by multiplied honors and responsibilities the home influence might be
fateful