In the garden she paused a moment by the rose-bush, where she had talked with Zorzi, but there was not even the shadow of a smile in her face now.  She went down the dark corridor and called the porter, who roused himself, opened the door and hailed the house opposite.  A woman looked out in the evening light, nodded and disappeared.  A few seconds later she came out of the house, a quiet little middle-aged creature in brown, with intelligent eyes, and she crossed the shaky wooden bridge over the canal to come and bring Marietta home.  It would have been a scandalous thing if the daughter of Angelo Beroviero had been seen by the neighbours to walk a score of paces in the street without an attendant.  She had thrown a hood of dark green cloth over her head, and the folds hung below her shoulders, half hiding her graceful figure.  Her step was smooth and deliberate, while the little brown serving-woman trotted beside her across the wooden bridge.

The house of Angelo Beroviero hung over the paved way, above the edge of the water, the upper story being supported by six stone columns and massive wooden beams, forming a sort of portico which was at the same time a public thoroughfare; but as the house was not far from the end of the canal of San Piero which opens towards Venice, few people passed that way.

Marietta paused a moment while the woman held the door open for her.  The sun had just set and the salt freshness that comes with the rising tide was already in the air.

“I wish I were in Venice this evening,” she said, almost to herself.

The serving-woman looked at her suspiciously.

CHAPTER II

The June night was dark and warm as Zorzi pushed off from the steps before his master’s house and guided his skiff through the canal, scarcely moving the single oar, as the rising tide took his boat silently along.  It was not until he had passed the last of the glass-houses on his right, and was already in the lagoon that separates Murano from Venice, that he began to row, gently at first, for fear of being heard by some one ashore, and then more quickly, swinging his oar in the curved crutch with that skilful, serpentine stroke which is neither rowing nor sculling, but which has all the advantages of both, for it is swift and silent, and needs scarcely to be slackened even in a channel so narrow that the boat itself can barely pass.

Now that he was away from the houses, the stars came out and he felt the pleasant land breeze in his face, meeting the rising tide.  Not a boat was out upon the shallow lagoon but his own, not a sound came from the town behind him; but as the flat bow of the skiff gently slapped the water, it plashed and purled with every stroke of the oar, and a faint murmur of voices in song was borne to him on the wind from the still waking city.