Treating, as we are, of the vices of the Venetian system, our pen has run truant with its subject, since the application of the moral must be made on the familiar scale suited to the incidents of our story. It has already been seen that Gelsomina was intrusted with certain important keys of the prison. For this trust there had been sufficient motive with the wily guardians of the jail, who had made their calculations on her serving their particular orders, without ever suspecting that she was capable of so far listening to the promptings of a generous temper, as might induce her to use them in any manner prejudicial to their own views. The service to which they were now to be applied proved that the keepers, one of whom was her own father, had not fully known how to estimate the powers of the innocent and simple. Provided with the keys in question, Gelsomina took a lamp and passed upwards from the mezzinino in which she dwelt, to the first floor of the edifice, instead of descending to its court. Door was opened after door, and many a gloomy corridor was passed by the gentle girl, with the confidence of one who knew her motive to be good. She soon crossed the Bridge of Sighs, fearless of interruption in that unfrequented gallery, and entered the palace. Here she made her way to a door that opened on the common and public vomitories of the structure. Moving with sufficient care to make impunity from detection sure, she extinguished the light and applied the key. At the next instant she was on the vast and gloomy stairway. It required but a moment to descend it, and to reach the covered gallery which surrounded the court. A halberdier was within a few feet of her. He looked at the unknown female with interest; but as it was not his business to question those who issued from the building, nothing was said. Gelsomina walked on. A half-repenting but vindictive being was dropping an accusation in the lion's mouth. Gelsomina stopped involuntarily until the secret accuser had done his treacherous work and departed. Then, when she was about to proceed, she saw that the halberdier at the head of the Giant's stairway was smiling at her indecision, like one accustomed to such scenes. "Is there danger in quitting the palace?" she asked of the rough mountaineer. "Corpo di Bacco! There might have been an hour since, Bella Donna; but the rioters are muzzled and at their prayers." Gelsomina hesitated no longer. She descended the well known flight, down which the head of Faliero had rolled, and was soon beneath the arch of the gate. Here the timid and unpractised maid again stopped, for she could not venture into the square without assuring herself, like a deer about to quit its cover, of the tranquillity of the place into which she was to enter.