occasions when she raised them; those slim, wax-like hands, with a chaplet
of beads entwined about the left wrist and hanging thence to a silver
crucifix at the end.

She moved almost silently, as a ghost; and where she passed she seemed to
leave a trail of sorrow and sadness in her wake, just as a worldly woman
leaves a trail of perfume.

Thus looked she when she came upon us there that evening, and thus will she
live for ever in my memory, for that was the first time that I knew
rebellion against the yoke she was imposing upon me; the first time that
our wills clashed, hers and mine; and as a consequence, maybe, was it the
first time that I considered her with purpose and defined her to myself.

The thing befell some three months after the coming of Falcone to Mondolfo.

That the old man-at-arms should have exerted a strong attraction upon my
young mind, you will readily understand. His intimate connection with that
dimly remembered father, who stood secretly in my imagination in the
position that my mother would have had St. Augustine occupy, drew me to his
equerry like metal to a lodestone.

And this attraction was reciprocal. Of his own accord old Falcone sought
me out, lingering in my neighbourhood at first like a dog that looks for a
kindly word. He had not long to wait. Daily we had our meetings and our
talks and daily did these grow in length; and they were stolen hours of
which I said no word to my mother, nor did others for a season, so that all
was well.

Our talks were naturally of my father, and it was through Falcone that I