“Once more, then. There! Now keep them so.”
Presently he spoke again:
“Your poor mother, Lucio—she mends?”
“She mends a little, Messer.”
“All due to the reliquary, is it not? Tell me the true story.”
“The story, Messer!”
“Saints, what a gasp! Yes, the story, Lucio. I had heard a whisper of it—how a dream came to the bedridden woman, down by the Volta gate, promising her she should recover if she would make gift to the Sanctuary of the Holy Virgin at Saronno of that possession which, next to her son, she held in all the world most dear. You know what thing that was—a little gold and crystal reliquary, empty of all save her child’s and her husband’s hair; you know—or doth the story lie? It relates at least of how the woman called her son to her, and yielded to him that treasure from its hiding-place, and bade him by his love of her do with it what he would. He did not hesitate, the good son who owed his mother all in all, but straightway he went his pilgrimage, fifteen miles thither and fifteen back, through perils and much hunger, and left his reliquary at the shrine, and won his guerdon. Well won, I say. He owed her all, and what he could pay he paid. There ends the story—and she mends, you say?”
“Faith is the great physician, Messer.”
“Well, God be thanked for it. I think it is.”
He looked round again quickly, then wrought on, while a long silence ensued. Presently, with an exclamation, he threw down his brushes.