f him. But he worked without
the brilliancy and enthusiasm of a few months past--as a man steadied by
some great sorrow, striving more strenuously to give of his best where
honor is concerned, because he is conscious that the heaviness of his
heart makes all duty irksome.

For Marina, with returning health,--the physicians spoke of her thus
since they had pronounced her out of danger,--had not fully returned to
him; it was less her whiteness and wanness that oppressed him than that
nameless change in the face and eyes which suggested a ceaseless,
passionate suppression of the deep, impassioned self, under the listless
exterior; there was an immeasurable loss in the sweetness of life to
them both, though never since the early days of their love had he been
so tender and patient, so eager to gladden her in little ways. But she
answered his love more often with a mute caress of her hand upon his
cheek than with smiles or words--yet with a touch that lingered, as if
to assure him that her love was not less, though she herself was
changed.

Something terribly real lay between them, of which it seemed better not
to speak, since all his efforts to change her point of view had failed.
It was utterly sad to have her so nearly herself again, and yet so far
from him. Life was hard for this young senator with his multiplied
honors, his wealth, and prestige. Marina had always given impetus to his
life; now it was he who watched and cared for her, while she seemed to
have no will for anything, yet had lost that old charming ingenuousness
which had underlain her power. He had promised himself, out of his new
pathetic yearning when she had begun to improve, that never again should
she know an ungratified wish, yet now he feared that she would give him
no opportunity of granting a request, so apathetic had she grown. But
one day, when he was trying to rouse her to express a desire, she laid
her hand eagerly on his, asking a thing so strange that unconsciously he
started away from her.

"Marco, mio, take me to Rome!"

For a moment, in spite of all that had gone before, the young Senator
was betrayed into a forgetfulness of his tender mood--it was so strange,
this request of a Lady of the Giustiniani, to choose Rome rather than
Venice at a time of contest; but her face and manner and speech were
luminous with hope; she was radiant again, as she had not been for many
months; yet the words escaped from him unintentionally and sternly: