“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.