CHAPTER V

REBELLION


The sight of my mother startled me more than I can say. It filled me with
a positive dread of things indefinable. Never before had I seen her coldly
placid countenance so strangely disordered, and her unwonted aspect it must
have been that wrought so potently upon me.

No longer was she the sorrowful spectre, white-faced, with downcast eyes
and level, almost inanimate, tones. Her cheeks were flushed unnaturally,
her lips were quivering, and angry fires were smouldering in her deep-set
eyes.

Swiftly she came down to us, seeming almost to glide over the ground. Not
me she addressed, but poor Luisina; and her voice was hoarse with an awful
anger.

"Who are you, wench?" quoth she. "What make you here in Mondolfo?"

Luisina had risen and stood swaying there, very white and with averted
eyes, her hands clasping and unclasping. Her lips moved; but she was too
terrified to answer. It was Giojoso who stepped forward to inform my
mother of the girl's name and condition. And upon learning it her anger
seemed to increase.