“He lied?” quoth she, her eyes wide open in amazement—not at the fact, but at the audacity of what she conceived my falsehood.
“It is not impossible,” said Fra Gervasio. “What is your story, Agostino?”
I told it—how the child out of a very gentle and Christian pity had released the poor birds that were taken in Rinolfo's limed twigs, and how in a fury he had made to beat her, so that she had fled to me for shelter and protection; and how, thereupon, I had bidden him begone out of that garden, and never set foot in it again.
“And now,” I ended, “you know all the violence that I showed him, and the reason for it. If you say that I did wrong, I warn you that I shall not believe you.”
“Indeed...” began the friar with a faint smile of friendliness. But my mother interrupted him, betwixt sorrow and anger.
“He lies, Gervasio. He lies shamelessly. O, into what a morass of sin has he not fallen, and every moment he goes deeper! Have I not said that he is possessed? We shall need the exorcist.”
“We shall indeed, madam mother, to clear your mind of foolishness,” I answered hotly, for it stung me to the soul to be branded thus a liar, to have my word discredited by that of a lout such as Rinolfo.
She rose a sombre pillar of indignation. “Agostino, I am your mother,” she reminded me.
“Let us thank God that for that, at least, you cannot blame me,” answered I, utterly reckless now.
The answer crushed her back into her chair. She looked appealingly at Fra Gervasio, who stood glum and frowning. “Is he... is he perchance bewitched?” she asked the friar, quite seriously. “Do you think that any spells might have.”