Much that is very good and true in the world is built upon the fanciful
fears of evil that warn girls' hearts of harm. There are dangers that
cannot be exaggerated, because the value of what they threaten cannot be
reckoned too great, so long as human goodness rests on the dangerous
quicksands of human nature.
Marietta had not realised what it meant to be betrothed to Jacopo
Contarini, until she had let her hand linger in Zorzi's. But after that,
one hour had not passed before she felt that she was living between two
alternatives that seemed almost equally terrible, and of which she must
choose the one or the other within two months. She must either marry
Contarini and never see Zorzi again, or she must refuse to be married
and face the tremendous consequences of her unheard-of wilfulness, her
father's anger, the just resentment of all the Contarini family, the
humiliation which her brothers would heap upon her, because, in the code
of those days, she would have brought shame on them and theirs. In those
times such results were very real and inevitable when a girl's formal
promise of marriage was broken, though she herself might never have been
consulted.
It was no wonder that Marietta was sleepless at night, and spent long
hours of the day sitting listless by her window without so much as
threading a score of beads from the little basket that stood beside her.
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