Marietta laid her head upon the pillow and tried to sleep, repeating
over and over again to herself that Zorzi was safe. But for a long time
the thought of the mantle haunted her. Giovanni had found it, of course,
and had brought it back with him. In the morning he would send for her
and demand an explanation, and she would have none to give. She would
have to admit that she had been in the laboratory--it mattered little
when--and that she had forgotten her mantle there. It would be useless
to deny it.
Then all at once she looked the future in the face, and she saw a little
light. She would refuse to answer Giovanni's questions, and when her
father came back she would tell him everything. She would tell him
bravely that nothing could make her marry Contarini, that she loved
Zorzi and would marry him, or no one. The mantle would probably be
forgotten in the angry discussion that would follow. She hoped so, for
even her father would never forgive her for having gone alone at night
to find Zorzi. If he ever found it out, he would make her spend the rest
of her life in a convent, and it would break his heart that she should
have thus cast all shame to the winds and brought disgrace on his old
age. It never occurred to her that he could look upon it in any other
way.
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