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Updated: May 20, 2025
She would watch him, and then call him suddenly and see him try to hide the little gladness he would feel as he turned to her; and when they were alone a moment, she would ask him whether he had remembered to forget Jacopo Contarini's name; and some day, but not for a long time yet, she would drop a rose again, and she would turn as he picked it up, but she would not make him give it back to her, and in that way he should know that she loved him.
If the old man could have had vision of Jacopo's life, and could have suddenly known what the beautiful woman in black was to the patrician, Contarini's chance of going home alive that day would have been small indeed, for Beroviero might have strangled him where he stood, and perhaps Aristarchi would have discreetly turned his back while he was doing it.
The latter uttered a low exclamation of surprise. "What is this?" he asked. "The token," answered Zorzi. He had scarcely spoken when he felt Contarini's arms round him, holding him fast. He was wise enough to make no attempt to escape from them. "Friends," said Contarini quickly, "the man who just came in is a spy. I am holding him. Help me!"
For in a few minutes the aspect of his world had changed, and Contarini's unknown figure filled the future. Until to-day, he had never seriously thought of Marietta's marriage, nor of what would happen to him afterwards; but now, he was to be one of the instruments for bringing the marriage about.
I know your house almost as well as you do, and you have kindly told me that your friends are all looked in. We shall therefore not have the trouble of leaving by the window, since we can go out by the front door, where my boat will be waiting for us. You will never see us again." Contarini's eyes rolled wildly, and still Arisa smiled. "You have made him suffer," she said. "He loved me."
"From Angelo," whispered Zorzi, so softly that Contarini only heard the last word. The door was now shut as noiselessly as before, but not by Contarini himself. He still kept his hold on Zorzi's arm. "The token," he whispered impatiently. Zorzi pulled the little leathern bag out of his doublet, slipped the string over his head and thrust the token into Contarini's hand.
Contarini's face was deep red with rage and suffocation, and his beautiful brown eyes were starting from their sockets with a terror which increased when he saw far the first time the man with whom he had to deal, or rather who was about to deal with him, and most probably without mercy. Then he caught sight of Arisa, smiling at him, but not as she had been wont to smile.
Almost at the same instant a door was opened and a broad bar of light shot across the hall from an inner room. Zorzi was roughly dragged towards it, and he saw that he was surrounded by about twenty masked men. His face was held to the light, and Contarini's hold on his throat relaxed. "Not even a mask!" exclaimed Jacopo. "A fool, or a madman. Speak, man I Who are you? Who sent you here?"
Jacopo turned suddenly, when he judged that he could leave the church without overtaking Beroviero, and he walked quietly down the nave. He passed close to Arisa, and Aristarchi guessed that their eyes met for a moment. He almost fancied that Contarini's lips moved, and he was sure that he smiled.
Giovanni Beroviero was well known to Contarini's household, for all knew of the approaching marriage, and the servants were not surprised when he inquired for the Governor of Murano, saying that his business was urgent. But the Governor was not there, nor the master of the house. They were gone to the Grand Canal.
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