mistress of my destinies, her mind at rest, since no longer need she fear
opposition to her wishes concerning me? I do not know, nor will I do her
the possible injustice that I should were I to guess.




CHAPTER II

GINO FALCONE


When I think of my mother now I do not see her as she appeared in any of
the scenes that already I have set down. There is one picture of her that
is burnt as with an acid upon my memory, a picture which the mere mention
of her name, the mere thought of her, never fails to evoke like a ghost
before me. I see her always as she appeared one evening when she came
suddenly and without warning upon Falcone and me in the armoury of the
citadel.

I see her again, a tall, slight, graceful woman, her oval face of the
translucent pallor of wax, framed in a nun-like coif, over which was thrown
a long black veil that fell to her waist and there joined the black
unrelieved draperies that she always wore. This sable garb was no mere
mourning for my father. His death had made as little change in her apparel
as in her general life. It had been ever thus as far as my memory can
travel; always had her raiment been the same, those trailing funereal
draperies. Again I see them, and that pallid face with its sunken eyes,
around which there were great brown patches that seemed to intensify the
depth at which they were set and the sombre lustre of them on the rare