'Postpone,' said Corner, and tightened his lips. 'The matter being so evenly balanced, as I have said, and as you must agree, it only remains to wait until some fresh discovery disturbs that balance. That is my considered view. If you cannot concur, we shall have to refer the matter to the Council of Ten.'
'You relieve me,' said the doleful Gabriel. 'I concur cordially.'
Together they now looked at Barberigo, and waited. The old man blinked at them with his watery eyes. His head shook more than ever in annoyance.
'I'll not oppose you,' he said at last. 'But this postponement is a waste of time. That young man was of an effrontery that I have always associated with guilt. And I don't want for experience. It would be more merciful not to keep him lingering in suspense, for it is written that he must come to the strangler in the end. Still, since you seem set on it, we will postpone the sentence.'
'Isotta, my dear, did Marc ever tell you that he was married?'
The Count sat at table with his Countess and their daughter. Supper was at an end, and the servants had left the room.
Isotta looked up with a smile; and smiling was an art that Isotta seemed lately to have lost. 'He must have forgotten to do so,' she said, and her father perceived that she mocked him.
'That is what I supposed.' He was very grave. He, too, had smiled little of late.
The Countess, looking from her husband to her daughter, supposed that a jest was passing which she did not understand. She begged to be enlightened. The Count responded clearly and definitely in a manner startling to both mother and daughter. Isotta, recovering, shook her dark head, and spoke confidently.
'There is an error somewhere in your information.'
Francesco Pizzamano, grave-eyed, denied the possibility of error. He stated whence his information came, and now, at last, Isotta's confidence deserted her.
'Oh! But it is unbelievable!' Her eyes were very round and black in the scared pallor of her face.
'Truth so often is,' said her father. 'Myself at first I could not credit it; not until it was admitted by Marc himself. Since then, considering it, I perceive that he must have had sound reason for his secrecy.'
'What reason could possibly exist?' Her voice shook.
He hunched his shoulders and spread his hands. 'In these times, when a man carries the burdens borne by Marc, reasons are not lacking. The inquisitors have discovered a reason, a very specious reason, that is entirely unfavourable to him. The true reason, whilst putting an entirely different appearance on it, may run it fairly close. What I most find to respect in Marc is that he is a man who will sacrifice everything to the cause he serves.'
'But if the inquisitors . . .' she began, and then broke off. Abruptly she asked: 'Is he in danger?'
Slowly the Count shook his head. 'My chief hope for him lies in the fact that Catarin is not by any means a fool.'
She questioned him closely, feverishly, upon the precise words that had passed between inquisitors and prisoner. When he had answered her with scrupulous accuracy, she sat as if drugged for a while; then, pleading weariness, she rose from the table, and begged them to excuse her.
When she had gone, Francesco Pizzamano looked gloomily at his Countess.
'Do you judge her to be deeply hurt by this?'
The handsome countess was tragic. 'The poor child looked as if she had taken her death-wound. I'll go to her.' She rose.
'A moment, my dear.'
The Count held out his arm. She came to him. Encircling her waist, he drew her to him where he sat. 'It might be better to leave her. I feared she would take it badly. Though God knows why.'
'I think I know, too.'
The Count slowly nodded. 'All things considered, my dear, it is surely best so. Resignation comes more readily when the thing desired is seen to exist no more.'
She set a hand upon his head. 'You are not hard, Franceschino. I have never found you so. And yet, where your own child is concerned, you consider nothing but expediency. Think of her heart, my dear.'
'I am thinking of it. I do not want it hurt more than it must be. I do not want it to bear more suffering than I have brought upon it. That is why I almost welcome a state of things that imposes resignation.'
'I scarcely understand you, dear.'
