“Blasphemer!” she denounced me. “What has God to do with this?” She waited for no answer, rightly judging, perhaps, that I had none to offer. “And as for that wanton,” she commanded, turning fiercely to Giojoso, “let her be whipped hence and out of the town of Mondolfo. Set the grooms to it.” But upon that command of hers I leapt of a sudden to my feet, a tightening about my heart, and beset by a certain breathlessness that turned me pale. Here again, it seemed, was to be repeated--though with methods a thousand times more barbarous and harsh--the wrong that was done years ago in the case of poor Gino Falcone. And the reason for it in this instance was not even dimly apparent to me. Falcone I had loved; indeed, in my eighteen years of life he was the only human being who had knocked for admission upon the portals of my heart. Him they had driven forth. And now, here was a child--the fairest creature of God's that until that hour I had beheld, whose companionship seemed to me a thing sweet and desirable, and whom I felt that I might love as I had loved Falcone. Her too they would drive forth, and with a brutality and cruelty that revolted me. Later I was to perceive the reasons better, and much food for reflection was I to derive from realizing that there are no spirits so vengeful, so fierce, so utterly intolerant, ungovernable, and feral as the spirits of the devout when they conceive themselves justified to anger. All the sweet teaching of Charity and brotherly love and patience is jettisoned, and by the most amazing paradox that Christianity has ever known, Catholic burns heretic, and heretic butchers Catholic, all for the love of Christ; and each glories devoutly in the deed, never heeding the blasphemy of his belief that thus he obeys the sweet and gentle mandates of the God Incarnate. Thus, then, my mother now, commanding that hideous deed with a mind at peace in pharisaic self-righteousness. But not again would I stand by as I had stood by in the case of Falcone, and let her cruel, pietistic will be done. I had grown since then, and I had ripened more than I was aware. It remained for this moment to reveal to me the extent. Besides, the subtle influence of sex--all unconscious of it as I was--stirred me now to prove my new-found manhood. “Stay!” I said to Giojoso, and in uttering the command I grew very cold and steady, and my breathing resumed the normal. He checked in the act of turning away to do my mother's hideous bidding. “You will give Madonna's order to the grooms, Ser Giojoso, as you have been bidden. But you will add from me that if there is one amongst them dares to obey it and to lay be it so much as a finger upon Luisina, him will I kill with these two hands.”