“She is more blessed, then, than I; since she has not lived to see what a power for sin she has brought forth. Go, pitiful friar. Go, both of you. You are very choicely mated. Begone from Mondolfo, and never let me see either of you more.”
She staggered to her great chair and sank into it, whilst we stood there, mute, regarding her. For myself, it was with difficulty that I repressed the burning things that rose to my lips. Had I given free rein to my tongue, I had made of it a whip of scorpions. And my anger sprang not from the things she said to me, but from what she said to that saintly man who held out a hand to help me out of the morass of sin in which I was being sunk. That he, that sweet and charitable follower of his Master, should be abused by her, should be dubbed blasphemer and have the cherished memory of his mother defiled by her pietistic utterances, was something that inflamed me horribly.
But he set a hand upon my shoulder.
“Come, Agostino,” he said very gently. He was calm once more. “We will go, as we are bidden, you and I.”
And then, out of the sweetness of his nature, he forged all unwittingly the very iron that should penetrate most surely into her soul.
“Forgive her, my son. Forgive her as you need forgiveness. She does not understand the thing she does. Come, we will pray for her, that God in His infinite mercy may teach her humility and true knowledge of Him.”
I saw her start as if she had been stung.
“Blasphemer, begone!” she cried again; and her voice was hoarse with suppressed anger.
And then the door was suddenly flung open, and Rinolfo clanked in, very martial and important, his hand thrusting up his sword behind him.
“Madonna,” he announced, “the Captain of Justice from Piacenza is here.”