“Not that! Ah, not that!” she exclaimed, putting out hands gropingly before her.
“That and more, Madonna,” he answered gravely. “Be brave to hear the rest. It is a very piteous story. But the founts of Divine Mercy are inexhaustible, and Agostino shall drink therefrom when by penitence he shall have cleansed his lips.”
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.