his legs stood to the rest of it, plainly announcing the nature of his
punishment.

My mother swept me indoors, loading me with reproaches as we went. She
dispatched some to help Giojoso, others she sent in urgent quest of Fra
Gervasio, me she hurried along to her private dining-room. I went very
obediently, and even a little fearfully now that my passion had fallen from
me.

There, in that cheerless room, which not even the splashes of sunlight
falling from the high-placed windows upon the whitewashed wall could help
to gladden, I stood a little sullenly what time she first upbraided me and
then wept bitterly, sitting in her high-backed chair at the table's head.

At last Gervasio came, anxious and flurried, for already he had heard some
rumour of what had chanced. His keen eyes went from me to my mother and
then back again to me.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"What has not happened?" wailed my mother. "Agostino is possessed."

He knit his brows. "Possessed?" quoth he.

"Ay, possessed--possessed of devils. He has been violent. He has broken
poor Rinolfo's leg."

"Ah!" said Gervasio, and turned to me frowning with full tutorial
sternness. "And what have you to say, Agostino?"