XIII
When the first faint flush of dawn was waking in the east, the fair, sweet face of Marina of Murano was outlined for the last time, vague as some dream memory, against the deep shadows of the interior, between the quaint columns that framed her window.
Birds were twittering in the vines of the pergola not far away; honeysuckles were pouring forth their fragrant morning oblations; and the salt sea-breeze wafted her its invigorating breath as the early tide, with slow, increasing motion, brimmed the channels that wound through the marshes on the borders of Murano and overflowed till the lagoon was a broad, unbroken vista of silver-gray, in whose shimmer and radiance, when the tide was at its full, the morning stars died out. But still they glistened dimly in the twilight of the sky to which she raised her questioning, believing eyes. Life was always beautiful to her loving soul; for when the shadows held a meaning deeper than she could solve, her answer was faith; and now, that her new joy was to grow out of a deep solitariness for the father so tenderly beloved, it was he who upheld her courage.
\"Life may not be,\" he said, \"without some shadow; this is the shade of thine, which, without it, were too bright. Heaven hath some purpose in its sending, but not that it should darken our eyes to miss the joy.\"
\"The day will be o''''er-lonely in this home, my father.\"
\"Nay, Marina, let love suffice; so shall we be always together! Shall I not go to thee? And thou wilt come to me, bringing thy new interests and holding thy dear heart ever pure and loyal to Venice, and thy home, and thy God—not forgetting. For thou hast chosen with thy whole heart, my daughter?\" since she had not answered. \"Thou dost not fear thyself?\"
\"Dearest father,\" she had said, hiding her face in his tender embrace, \"all of my heart which is not thine is wholly his—only my happiness is too great.\"
\"Nay, daughter, since it is of God''''s own sending; take all the joy and grieve not.\"
\"Only at leaving thee.\"
\"I would not keep thee here, to leave thee mourning and alone when my days are closed.\"
\"Father!\"
\"Not to sadden thee, my child, but to show thee that life is linked to life—God wills it so. Thou and I are bound to that which has been and to that which is to be. We do not stand alone to choose. The sweetness of our life together should make it easier for me to yield thee to the fuller life which calleth thee. We must each bear our part in the beauty of the whole. For perfect love, there must be sacrifice.\"
She was thinking of these things as she stood in the gray dawn waiting for the beauty of the on-coming day, quite alone with her thoughts and with her God, the giver of this beauty; and often as she had stood there with her morning offering of trust and adoration, never before had the day-dawn seemed so full of mystery and promise, nor the new life which the morning held within its keeping so full of hope and beauty. The very tide, flowing round her island home, brought thoughts of her home that was to be, as it swept through the channels of the City of the Sea, past the palace where her lover was waiting, bringing murmurs and messages of liquid harmony. The marsh grasses swayed and yielded to its flow, lending new depths of color to the water-bed, as they bowed beneath the masterful current—so the difficulties which had seemed to beset their hopes had been vanquished by the resistless tide of his love and constancy.
The stars were lost in the deep gray-blue of the sky; a solemn stillness, like the presage of some divine event, seemed for a moment to hold the pulses of the universe; then a soft rose crept into the shimmer of the water and crested the snows on the distant Euganean Hills, the transient, many-tinted glory of the east reflected itself in opal lights upon the silver sea, then suddenly swept the landscape in one dazzling glow of gold—and the joy-bells rang out. For to-day a festa had been granted in Murano.
Then, wrapping herself closely in the soft folds of her gray mantle, falling Madonna-wise from her head and shrouding her figure, she glided for the last time over the ponte and down past the sleeping homes of Murano; for it was yet early for matins, and she would have the Madonna all to herself as she knelt with her heart full of tenderness for the dear life this day should merge in that other which beckoned her with joyous anticipation—yet stilled to serenity by the golden glory and promise of the dawn, and the beautiful, self-sacrificing, upholding faith of the great-hearted Girolamo.
He had followed her and folded her passionately to his heart, as she crossed the threshold of their home on her way to San Donato. \"I must be first,\" he said, \"to bless thee on thy bridal day. Fret thee not, for thou art bidden to a mission, since thou goest forth from the people to the highest circle of the nobles. And love alone hath bidden and drawn thee. Forget it not, Marina! So shall a blessing go with thee and rest upon thee!\"