“We shall indeed, madam mother, to clear your mind of foolishness,” I answered hotly, for it stung me to the soul to be branded thus a liar, to have my word discredited by that of a lout such as Rinolfo. She rose a sombre pillar of indignation. “Agostino, I am your mother,” she reminded me. “Let us thank God that for that, at least, you cannot blame me,” answered I, utterly reckless now. The answer crushed her back into her chair. She looked appealingly at Fra Gervasio, who stood glum and frowning. “Is he... is he perchance bewitched?” she asked the friar, quite seriously. “Do you think that any spells might have.” He interrupted her with a wave of the hand and an impatient snort “We are at cross purposes here,” he said. “Agostino does not lie. For that I will answer.” “But, Fra Gervasio, I tell you that I saw them--that I saw them with these two eyes--sitting together on the terrace steps, and he had his arm about her. Yet he denies it shamelessly to my face.” “Said I ever a word of that?” I appealed me to the friar. “Why, that was after Rinolfo left us. My tale never got so far. It is quite true. I did sit beside her. The child was troubled. I comforted her. Where was the harm?” “The harm?” quoth he. “And you had your arm about her--and you to be a priest one day?” “And why not, pray?” quoth I. “Is this some new sin that you have discovered--or that you have kept hidden from me until now? To console the afflicted is an ordination of Mother Church; to love our fellow-creatures an ordination of our Blessed Lord Himself. I was performing both. Am I to be abused for that?” He looked at me very searchingly, seeking in my countenance--as I now know--some trace of irony or guile. Finding none, he turned to my mother. He was very solemn. “Madonna,” he said quietly, “I think that Agostino is nearer to being a saint than either you or I will ever get.” She looked at him, first in surprise, then very sadly. Slowly she shook her head. “Unhappily for him there is another arbiter of saintship, Who sees deeper than do you, Gervasio.” He bowed his head. “Better not to look deep enough than to do as you seem in danger of doing, Madonna, and by looking too deep imagine things which do not exist.” “Ah, you will defend him against reason even,” she complained. “His anger exists. His thirst to kill--to stamp himself with the brand of Cain--exists. He confesses that himself. His insubordination to me you have seen for yourself; and that again is sin, for it is ordained that we shall honour our parents. “O!” she moaned. “My authority is all gone. He is beyond my control. He has shaken off the reins by which I sought to guide him.” “You had done well to have taken my advice a year ago, Madonna. Even now it is not too late. Let him go to Pavia, to the Sapienza, to study his humanities.” “Out into the world!” she cried in horror. “O, no, no! I have sheltered him here so carefully!”