She paused a moment, whilst we stared, Fra Gervasio white-faced and with mouth that gaped in sheer horror.
“For years had he eluded the long arm of the pope's justice,” she resumed. “And during those years he had never ceased to plot and plan the overthrow of the Pontifical dominion. He was blinded by his arrogance to think that he could stand against the hosts of Heaven. His stubbornness in sin had made him mad. Quem Deus vult perdere...” And she waved one of her emaciated hands, leaving the quotation unfinished. “Heaven showed me the way, chose me for Its instrument. I sent him word, offering him shelter here at Mondolfo where none would look to find him, assuming it to be the last place to which he would adventure. He was to have come when death took him on the field of Perugia.”
There was something here that I did not understand at all. And in like case, it seemed, was Fra Gervasio, for he passed a hand over his brow, as if to clear thence some veils that clogged his understanding.
“He was to have come?” he echoed. “To shelter?” he asked.
“Nay,” said she quietly, “to death. The papal emissaries had knowledge of it and would have been here to await him.”
“You would have betrayed him?” Fra Gervasio's voice was hoarse, his eyes were burning sombrely.
“I would have saved my son,” said she, with quiet satisfaction, in a tone that revealed how incontestably right she conceived herself to be.
He stood there, and he seemed taller and more gaunt than usual, for he had drawn himself erect to the full of his great height—and he was a man who usually went bowed. His hands were clenched and the knuckles showed blue-white like marble. His face was very pale and in his temple a little pulse was throbbing visibly. He swayed slightly upon his feet, and the sight of him frightened me a little. He seemed so full of terrible potentialities.
When I think of vengeance, I picture to myself Fra Gervasio as I beheld him in that hour. Nothing that he could have done would have surprised me. Had he fallen upon my mother then, and torn her limb from limb, it would have been no more than from the sight of him I might have expected.
I have said that nothing that he could have done would have surprised me. Rather should I have said that nothing would have surprised me save the thing he did.