Very erect she stood there, silent and ghostly, her face looking diaphanous by contrast with the black draperies that enshrouded her, whilst her eyes were great pools of sorrow. Poor, poor mother! It is the last recollection I have of her; for after that day we never met again, and I would give ten years to purgatory if I might recall the last words that passed between us. As briefly as possible and ever thrusting into the foreground the immensity of the snare that had been spread for me and the temptation that had enmeshed me, Gervasio told her the story of my sin. She heard him through in that immovable attitude, one hand pressed to her heart, her poor pale lips moving now and again, but no sound coming from them, her face a white mask of pain and horror. When he had done, so wrought upon was I by the sorrow of that countenance that I went forward again to fling myself upon my knees before her. “Mother, forgive!” I pleaded. And getting no answer I put up my hands to take hers. “Mother!” I cried, and the tears were streaming down my face. But she recoiled before me. “Are you my child?” she asked in a voice of horror. “Are you the thing that has grown out of that little child I vowed to chastity and to God? Then has my sin overtaken me--the sin of bearing a son to Giovanni d'Anguissola, that enemy of God!” “Ah, mother, mother!” I cried again, thinking perhaps by that all-powerful word to move her yet to pity and to gentleness. “Madonna,” cried Gervasio, “be merciful if you would look for mercy.” “He has falsified my vows,” she answered stonily. “He was my votive offering for the life of his impious father. I am punished for the unworthiness of my offering and the unworthiness of the cause in which I offered it. Accursed is the fruit of my womb!” She moaned, and sank her head upon her breast. “I will atone!” I cried, overwhelmed to see her so distraught. She wrung her pale hands. “Atone!” she cried, and her voice trembled. “Go then, and atone. But never let me see you more; never let me be reminded of the sinner to whom I have given life. Go! Begone!” And she raised a hand in tragical dismissal. I shrank back, and came slowly to my feet. And then Gervasio spoke, and his voice boomed and thundered with righteous indignation. “Madonna, this is inhuman!” he denounced. “Shall you dare to hope for mercy being yourself unmerciful?” “I shall pray for strength to forgive him; but the sight of him might tempt me back with the memory of the thing that he has done,” she answered, and she had returned to that cold and terrible reserve of hers. And then things that Fra Gervasio had repressed for years welled up in a mighty flood. “He is your son, and he is as you have made him.” “As I have made him?” quoth she, and her glance challenged the friar.