Why earnest thou hither this night?"
"For this cause and for no other," said Piero solemnly, "that thou
mightest find me, if need should be for any service to her. And to swear
to thee, by the Madonna and every saint of Venice, that I would give my
life for her!"
But old Girolamo grew the angrier for Piero's professions of loyalty.
"Shall her father do less than thou?" he questioned, wrathfully. "On the
morrow will I go to her, and leave her no more until she forgets."
"By all the saints in heaven, and every Madonna in Venice, and our Lady
of every traghetto!" Piero exclaimed, as he wrenched himself away from
Girolamo's angry grasp, while the old man staggered against the wall,
still holding a bit of cloth from the gondolier's cloak in his closed
hand, "I am vowed to my mission before this dawn! What I have spoken is
for duty to thine house, and not in anger--though I could color my
stiletto in good patrician blood and die for it gaily, if that would
help her!"
But Girolamo could not yet find his voice, and Piero, with his hand on
the latch of the great iron gates of the water-story, turned and called
back: "Women are not like men, and Marina is like no other woman that
ever was born in Venice.
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