Very secret she must have kept it, for, innocent though she was and untouched by the coarsening finger of the world, she knew perfectly well what would happen to young Gheravdo Guvro if word of her spiritual escapade should come to the ears of her gentle men folks, and, of all the world, only her old nurse was in the secret. The old woman was devoted to her and, being a plebeian herself, her class sympathy went out towards the young man, so that she helped the lovers to meet again and again and whenever the chance offered itself. This sort of thing could not last for long, even with the most virtuous disposition and the best of intentions, and it was not very long before the natural consummation of the affair came, and they were secretly married. Then, safe in the irrevocable nature of the bond, Gheravdo sailed away to make his fortune, as do the Calabrian youths of to-day, leaving his wife behind him—and, considering the moral characteristics of her kinsfolk, he seems to have taken some considerable risks. Before he was fairly off, Pietro Candiano informed his daughter that he had found that for which he had been searching and that he was going to marry her without any possible delay to a gentleman of the name of Vittor Belegno. Upon learning this, the girl’s heart stopped and she fell into a trance, which resembled death so closely that she was placed in a coffin and put away in the Cathedral before the evening. Then luck stepped in, and Gheravdo, for some reason or another returned, only to hear upon arriving of her sudden death. Frenzied, he ran to the Cathedral and, with the aid of the sacristan—obtained in the usual fashion—opened the tomb and wrenched the lid from the coffin. Taking the beloved head in his hands, he smothered it with kisses, crying and sobbing over it until, to his amazement and joy, a tinge of colour appeared in the silk-white cheeks, and, under his rapturous, half-incredulous caresses, the body lost its rigidity and the blood stole back into the cold limbs, and he lifted her out, babbling his gratitude to the Almighty, and carried her away. It is said that when her father set eyes on her his joy overcame everything else in him, and that he gave her to Gheravdo, gladly and without reserve, but upon that I, personally, have my doubts. Still it may have been, and one can only hope that it was! CHAPTER XXI “THE WEDDING OF THE SEA” Origin—Venice’s Growth—Treaties with the Emperor—Pietro Orseolo Annihilates the Pirates—Welcome on His Return—Story of Marco Polo—A Trader with the East—A Strange Journey—Bokhara—Capital of Kublai Khan—Impressed with Christian Ideals—Return Journey—At Home in Venice—Failure of Plans to Convert the Tartars—Again in the Far East—Lost for Twenty-five Years—Return to Venice with Vast Wealth—A Gorgeous Banquet—Marco’s Rehabilitation—Ruskin and the Church.