"Gino Falcone is an old man, and he was my lord's best-loved servant. He
would have died for my lord, and joyfully; and now he is turned adrift, to
die to no purpose. Ah, well." He heaved a deep sigh and fell silent,
whilst I--the pent-up anguish in me suddenly released to hear my thoughts
thus expressed--fell soundlessly to weeping.

"Do you reprove me, Fra Gervasio?" quoth my mother, quite emotionless.

The monk pushed back his stool and rose ere he replied. "I must," he said,
"or I am unworthy of the scapulary I wear. I must reprove this unchristian
act, or else am I no true servant of my Master."

She crossed herself with her thumb-nail upon the brow and upon the lips, to
repress all evil thoughts and evil words--an unfailing sign that she was
stirred to anger and sought to combat the sin of it. Then she spoke,
meekly enough, in the same cold, level voice.

"I think it is you who are at fault," she told him, "when you call
unchristian an act which was necessary to secure this child to Christ."

He smiled a sad little smile. "Yet even so, it were well you should
proceed with caution and with authority; and in this you have none."

It was her turn to smile, the palest, ghostliest of smiles, and even for so
much she must have been oddly moved. "I think I have," said she, and
quoted, "'If thy right hand offend thee, hack it off.'"

I saw a hot flush mount to the friar's prominent cheek­bones. Indeed, he
was a very human man under his conventual robe, with swift stirrings of