XXIII
As the cry of the populace rang down the Canal Grande, following the retreating ranks of the Jesuits, who, bound by their greater vows to Rome, had remained steadfast and refused obedience to the Senate''''s mandate, the Lady Marina, roused by the excitement which they dreaded, had started to her feet with a marvelous return of her former mental power and a fullness of comprehension which sought for no explanations. She stood for a moment panting with hot, unspoken speech, turning from one to another, and then, with a sudden, great effort, repressed the words she would have spoken, asking quietly, after a pause in which no reference had been made to the expulsion of the confraternities:
\"Which of the orders have gone? What more hath happened that I know not?\"
\"Nay, the orders of the monks and of the friars have chiefly been faithful to Venice,\" they told her, \"and all is well. This society, which for long hath been cause of much disorder in our Republic, it is well that it leave Venice in peace.\"
She answered nothing, weighing their words silently. \"Is it because they are faithful to their vows, and to their Church?\" she asked at length, in quiet irony.
\"Nay, but because they teach disobedience to princes and would thus undermine the law of the land,\" Marcantonio hastened to explain, grateful that she could at length discuss the question. \"Carina,—blessed be San Marco,—thou art like thyself! We will talk together; we will make all clear to thee; thou shalt grieve no more, carinissima!\"
She put up her hand and touched his cheek with an answering caress—the first through all these weary days. \"I shall get well, Marco mio,\" she said, with a sudden conviction that surprised them; but still there was no smile in her eyes, and their hearts were sad, though the change that had come over her was so extraordinary that they hoped much from the explanation which the great Santorio had authorized.
But for whom should they send in this moment, when life and death hung in the balance, to speak that authoritative word.
The Bishop of Aquileia, first and greatest of the Venetian bishops, had incurred the displeasure of the Senate for refusing to perform the duties of his office while the Republic remained under that fulminated but unacknowledged censure, and a new prelate, of opinions approved by the Most Serene Republic, sat in the vacated see. The Bishop of Vicenza had likewise signified his sympathy with the Holy See; and in Brescia their wandering prelate had scarcely yet received that strengthening monition of the watching Senate which was to recall him from his hiding-place and hold him steadfast in his cathedral service.
And for the Patriarch Vendramin, who had been summoned to Rome to receive the benediction of the Supreme Pontiff, but had been forbidden by the Senate to leave the Venetian domains, this episode, which was a feature of the struggle known to the whole of Venice, placed him so openly on the side of the Republic that it forbade his ministry with the Lady Marina.
But there was one so jealously guarded from all interruption and fatigue that strangers who came from far to see him were refused audience, by order of the Senate, or were received for a few moments only in some protected chamber of the Ducal Palace; for the springs of government moved at his touch, the matters which occupied him were weighty, and for these they would spare his strength. Yet again the Senate signified a rare consideration for the Ca'''' Giustiniani by permitting the attendance of their Teologo Consultore in the palazzo of the Lady Marina; for who so well could minister to her diseased mind as he who had unanswerably placed the question in its true light before all the Councils of the Republic?
She stood with bowed head and clasped hands as he approached her, her hair falling unbound, as in her maiden days, over the simply white robe which she had preferred in her illness, discarding all her jewels and all emblems of her state—pale as a vision, like a sad dream of the beautiful Madonna del Sorriso which the Veronese had painted for that altar of the Servi at which, each morning, Fra Paolo still dutifully ministered.
\"Peace be with thee and to thine house, my daughter,\" said the Padre Maestro Paolo, spreading out his hands in priestly salutation as he entered the oratory of the palazzo Giustiniani, where the Lady Marina awaited him.