He helped her silently into the gondola and steered it carefully between
the pali which rose like a scattered sheaf, glowing with the colors of
the Giustiniani, in the water before her palace. And thus, in the early
dawn--unattended, with the sadness of death in her pallid face--the lady
of the Giustiniani floated away from her beautiful home--away from
happiness and love--into a future cheerless and dim as the dawn lights
that were faintly tinging the sea. For the day was breaking, full of
gloom, under a sky of clouds, and the wind blew chill from across the
Lido.
She sat with her gray mantle shrouding her face, and neither of them
spoke, while the gondola, under Piero's deft guidance, quickly gained
the steps of the Piazzetta and passed on to San Giorgio. Then she
touched his arm entreatingly.
"Oh, let us wait one moment before we lose sight of the palazzo! Madre
Beatissima, have them in thy keeping!"
She stretched out her hands unconsciously, with a gesture of petition,
and her mantle slipped back, exposing her pallid, pain-stricken face and
her whitened tresses.
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