But if the one woman in Venice had but one desire,
however desperate and incomprehensible,--"_Basta_! It is enough," said
Piero to himself,--she should not die with it unfulfilled, if he could
compass it.
Yet, at the thought of death his heart sank. "It was the Madonna which
thou beheldest in thy vision--not the cross?" he asked her quickly,
making the fateful sign as he spoke, to avert this dread presage of
death, and afraid of her answer; for Marina was failing before his eyes,
and doubtless, in her vision, there had been some apparition of a cross;
and even the less devout among the gondoliers were still dominated by
some of the superstitions which gave a picturesque color to the habits
of the people.
But she, too earnest in her faith to take any note of a less serious
mood, answered simply:
"It was the very Madonna herself, as thou knowest her in San Donato, who
came to me in the palazzo one night when I slept not, and gave me the
mission to save Venice,--scarce able to speak for her great sadness,
and the tears dropping, as thou knowest her in San Donato,--commanding
me to go before the Holy Father and pray for mercy to Venice.
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