Max Pemberton

“ Never more in that house will a child's voice be heard nor the word of a mother to him she loved. Oh, look upon it well, signora, for the tears fall upon the child's face as to-morrow they may fall upon the face of your son."
He spoke as one who judges, for he knew that the hour of his victory was at hand. When he had finished, he looked at the woman and saw that the burning tears were falling fast upon her hands. Pride warred with her grief no more. All the years she had reigned in Venice were forgotten in that instant. She was a woman crying for the love of the child she had lost. ”

“ She moved as some spirit of the feast, as some apparition, going from room to room and door to door; saying always, "I am alone."
Venice had humiliated her; she knew that no further humiliation was possible. Never again would she hold up her head in the city; never again would her name be aught but sport for the people; a mockery and a name dishonoured. Woman-like, she cared less for any punishment that her judges might be about to visit upon her than for this mortal wound to her vanity. ”

“ Half-past eight o'clock was the hour now, and as it struck, panic seized the. mistress of the house, and was shared by her servants. One by one they began to leave the palace; at first the more timid and impudent; then the irresolute; at last even those whom she had trusted greatly. Alone there in that great ballroom, alone with the countless tapers, and the sweet-smelling flowers, and the gold and silver of the ornaments, she stood as one in a dream. The message which the night gave to her was the message the priest had spoken. "Your hour is at hand," he had said. ”

“ Surely the justice of Venice is very hard that it should thus visit one who, I do not deny it, is a little fond of the dice-box, yet whose banquets are not surpassed in Italy. Be advised of me, my friends, and go to your homes. There is danger in the air to-day, and the wise man will not wish to breathe it."
He uttered a heavy sigh, for the memory of pretty Bianca's good wines was very dear to him. But the people continued to discuss a discovery so momentous long after he had returned reluctantly to the altar awaiting him.
"Venice will send a message to Bianca to-day, my friends. ”

“ The jewels at her throat seemed to burn her. "They would give life to the children of Venice," she thought.
"Take me to my son," she cried. "To-morrow, I will find a home in the convent of Murano. The children of Venice shall hunger no more——"
"Signora," was the answer, "your home lies in the houses of the poor."
He made a sign to his servant, and the gondola was halted at the steps by the bridge of Rialto. A young man stepped from the shadows of the quay when the boat came up; he raised the weeping woman and held her in his strong arms. ”

“ She saw the cities of the poor, the cities of the little children; she saw the throne of her motherhood, and the name of her own son was upon her lips. She did not hear the priest when he bade her look for the third time.
They had stopped before a small house near the church of San Geremia. The door of the house was open. In the stone corridor beyond, a little coffin, with tapers on either side of it, awaited the boat which should carry it to San Michele.
"Signora," said the priest, dropping his voice until it was but a whisper, "look well, for yonder is a house of weeping. ”

“ Mark the Evangelist drew near, and people said that the mistress of Venice would keep it as never feast was kept before. Every great noble of the city, the patriarch who ruled the Church, the president who ruled the judges, the admirals of the fleet, the generals of the armies, the lords of Vicenza, of Padua, of Brescia, of Florence—all these fell under Bianca's spell and promised her support. It would be an orgie surpassing words, the common people said. But others shrugged their shoulders and cried: "Shame on Venice that she should honour one who has made our rich men poor ”

“ Mark than call that great lady my mother."
"Well spoken, Gentile," said a good-humoured innkeeper, who had listened with interest to their talk; "it is an ill day for Venice when she harbours such hawks as the Marchesa della Scala."
"Where is her son," asked another; "why is he silent when his mother's name is in the mouth of every wanton? I remember the day, signori, when there was no greater house in Venice than that of the Marchese della Scala. The poor fed at his tables ”

“ Nevertheless, there was a little burst of sunshine at six o'clock in the morning; and another hour had not passed before men, and women, too, forgot the hour and the day, and thought only of the news, surpassing belief, which spread as a pestilence through all the places where the citizens loved to congregate. ”

“ Some day Venice will reckon with her, and then——!"
A loud chord of music from the open windows of the palace cut short the satisfaction with which these opinions were received. Men pressed to the parapet of the bridge to watch other gondolas as they set down their glittering burdens on the quay of the brilliantly-lighted house. Young girls exclaimed with delight as women, whose jewels would have set a new king upon his throne, passed up the steps to the saturnalia awaiting them beyond the threshold ”

“ The Marchesa asked the question of that lacquey with an assumption of an indifference she was far from feeling. That premonition, which is a factor of so many misfortunes, warned her already that something was amiss. ”

“ She watched him with a hand at her throat and anger passing words in her heart.
For it seemed, when he was gone, that someone had written upon the wall of the great house the sentence of its doom.
III. The day of days, the Feast of Mark the Evangelist, dawned angrily over Venice. A great blight seemed to fall upon the city; thunder-clouds hovered about the distant mountains of the mainland, and loomed over the waveless lagoon. ”

“ There is no city so distant that the name of the Master of Venice is not spoken there with love and reverence. If he should prove my friend!"
The priest answered by linking his arm in that of the young man and leading him toward the Piazzetta and the Ducal Palace.
"Marchese," he said, "the feast of the Ascension shall not be here before I say to you, as my Master said to the apostle he loved ' Son, behold thy mother!"
II. Twenty days had passed and the name of Bianca, Marchesa della Scala, was again upon the tongue of the Venetians. For the feast of St. ”