The elder Villani did not stir. He reclined in the cushions, his eyes fixed upon his son with a pitiful look of pleading, which might do far more than words, to prepare the youth's mind for such a thought. Slowly, almost unconsciously, Francesco moved away from the bed. His gaze wandered aimlessly about the room. His ideas refused to concentrate themselves upon anything. It was too monstrous to conceive! It was past belief, past understanding,--an ill-timed jest perhaps--but yet a jest! And he burst out with a laugh in which there was no thought of mirth. "A monk!" The old man regarded him anxiously. "I did not jest!" The laugh died to silence, then rose again in his throat, but Francesco's eyes were terrible. "Am I fitted for a monk?" he spoke at last. "You know what my life has been. Have not you placed me in the sphere of the court, even ere I had attained the power to think? How can I become a monk? What do I know of the way of monks? What do I know of their lives? I must have time to think!" "There is no time," insisted the elder Villani, despair in his eyes. "There is no time!" Francesco exclaimed aghast. Then all the blood rushed to his heart. "You mean that I am to decide, here and now?" "Here and now!" came the low, inexorable voice. The youth sprang from his seat. "Then I say no,--no,--no!" he shouted, his eyes flashing fierce determination from the pale face. "I am not fit to be a monk! I will not be a monk! I am of the living,--I came for the sunlight, not the shadow of the cloister! Never--never--never!" A terrible, indefinable expression passed into the eyes of the sick man. It passed out again, but the trace remained. When he spoke again, his voice was weak, and there was a note in it of despair. "Deem you, that I have not thought of it, that I have not weighed in the balance all your objections to the life of the cloister when I asked this thing of you? You say you are of the court! You came for the sunlight, not the shadow! What man does not! But you forget, there is a force that shapes our ends,--you forget--your origin,--your birth! I am your father and my sin is yours! We are both impure in the sight of God! I have opened a means of salvation for both of us--the Way of the Cross. A glorious way it is, for by it my soul shall belong to you! In the sight of men you are as nothing! The blot of your birth can never be effaced! But you are my son! Therefore, here on my death-bed I command you to leave this world, that you may open the way to another,--a better one,--to both of us,--to both of us, Francesco,--to you and to me!" There was a long silence between them, a silence of dread and expectation for the one,--of fear and despair for the other. At last Francesco raised his head. "And she, whom I never knew,--she who was my mother," he asked bitterly--"have you saved her soul? Or is that too left for me to do?"