"These do I bring--and these, for an offering!" she cried, feverishly
unclasping the lustrous pearls from her throat and girdle and laying
them at the feet of the Patriarch. "And all the dear happiness of my
life have I given, that I might reach thee with this prayer for Venice!
Oh, Holy Father, accept my sacrifice!"
She reverently pressed the hem of the priestly robe to her lips, and
those who knew of her flight from Venice understood that she fancied she
had reached the Roman Court and was kneeling in the presence of the
Sovereign Pontiff; but in their amazement that she alone, who was dying
from the grief of it, did not know that the interdict had been removed,
it had not seemed possible to answer her.
But there was no room for anger as they listened--though her plea was a
judgment on the court of Venice--for her voice thrilled them with its
unearthly sadness, and, looking into her beautiful, spirit face, they
saw that all her consciousness was merged in her intense realization of
the utmost terror of the curse, and in her one burning hope--to which
all things else were as nothing and in which she herself was wholly
lost.
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