midnight
For , although of her own will she could have given but one reply , she had bitterly resented the imperative command of the Signoria forbidding her second marriage , as an indignity assuring her that she was not free -- and each fresh importunity was a reminder of her bondage . If the Cyprian members of the Council of the Realm also saw that the meshes of Venice were steadily gathering more closely about them , they had no longer power of resistance against that craftiness of the Republic which had known how to divert the moneys that should have gone to the making of a Cyprian Marine , while tickling their love of splendor with some outward show -- yet had kept the island kingdom from appreciating this great need , by the readiness with which full-manned Venetian galleys protected the Cyprian coasts whenever they were threatened with devastation . More than one letter of resistance and impotent pleading in Caterina 's own hand , had gone from this Daughter of the Republic to the Doge himself , and passed from the Serenissimo into the secret archives of San Marco ; but the very fact of the appeal was an acknowledgment of Venetian right , and the evils steadily increased . While Caterina tried to forget that the clasp of a velvet paw may fatally crush , when the force of an angry lion is behind it : or -- if she remembered it too cruelly in the hours of her desolate midnight vigils , what could she do but ignore the insult , with a woman 's power of endurance , that she might defer the day that should separate her from her work and her people with whom her last dim hopes of happiness were inextricably bound up : for to them she knew that she was still the Mother Queen -- `` Nostra Madonna , '' and the dear title was a cure for much heart-anguish . More than once the good Father Johannes -- his hair and beard now falling in thin gray locks about his throat and breast , but the spirit within him still gleaming fiercely from his deep eyes -- had come with painful steps down the long way from his distant Troödos to help and comfort her . `` Daughter , '' he said , `` for thy brave wrestling I absolve thee from thy vow . Christ and the Holy Mother are merciful .