wave of
shame.

Tony glanced about him. "If I could wrench a bar out of that window--"
he muttered.

"Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.--Oh, I
must speak!" She sprang up and paced the room. "But indeed you can
scarce think worse of me than you do already--"

"I think ill of you?"

"Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen
for me--"

"Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married
him."

"Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice."

"It is infamous, I say--infamous!"

"No, no--I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others."

"Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!"

"He has a dreadful name for violence--his gondolier has told my little
maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of you
I should be thinking?"

"Of me, poor child?" cried Tony, losing his head.

"Yes, and how to save you--for I _can_ save you! But every moment
counts--and yet what I have to say is so dreadful."

"Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful."

"Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!"

"Well, now at least you are free of him," said Tony, a little wildly;
but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him.

"No, I am not free," she said; "but you are, if you will do as I tell
you."

Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight
through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the
fall had stunned him.

"What am I to do?" he said.

"Look away from me, or I can never tell you."

He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him,
and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the
window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back
was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though
she were reciting a lesson.

"You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is not
a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate
spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of
ready money.--If you turn round I shall not go on!--He wrangled
horribly with my father over my dowry--he wanted me to have more than
either of my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a
grandee of Spain. But my father is a gambler too--oh, such fortunes as
are squandered over the arcade yonder! And so--and so--don't turn, I
implore you--oh, do you begin