"Marina, beloved, there is nothing to fear!"
he cried desperately, eager for his own defense, resolute to make her
comprehend the perfect safety of Venice, to calm the beseeching horror
in her eyes; "Fra Paolo will come!"
Her gaze relaxed, her eyelids quivered and closed; she had fainted.
--Or was it death?
He folded her to his heart with a cry of desolation.
The Lady Beata hastily thrust him aside and opened the white robe at the
throat, and Marcantonio started back; there were stripes of half-healed
laceration on the tender flesh--some fresh, as if but just raised by the
lash.
"Ay, my lord," Beata answered very low, to his quick, grieved question;
"all that a daughter of the Church may do hath our lady added to her
prayers for Venice. She hath been rigorous in fasting and in penance
until her strength is gone; but the pain of it she feeleth not, because
of the greater pain of her soul, which is lost in supplication that
availeth naught."
Leonardo Donato would be very gracious to the Lady of the Giustiniani,
though she had come so near to costing the city a divided vote, because
he had seen the misery in her eyes with her great love for Venice, and
because the Council had so declared its vote for the State that he could
afford to be magnanimous.
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