But I did not move. Her words had fixed me there with horror. I heard
from Falcone a sound that was between a growl and a sob. I dared not look
at him, but the eye of my fancy saw him standing rigid, pale, and
self-contained.
What would he do, what would he say? Oh, she had done a cruel, a bitterly
cruel wrong. This poor old warrior, all scarred and patched from wounds
that he had taken in my father's service, to be turned away in his old age,
as we should not have turned away a dog! It was a monstrous thing.
Mondolfo was his home. The Anguissola were his family, and their honour
was his honour, since as a villein he had no honour of his own. To cast
him out thus!
All this flashed through my anguished mind in one brief throb of time, as I
waited, marvelling what he would do, what say, in answer to that dismissal.
He would not plead, or else I did not know him; and I was sure of that,
without knowing what else there was that must make it impossible for old
Falcone to stoop to ask a favour of my mother.
Awhile he just stood there, his wits overthrown by sheer surprise. And
then, when at last he moved, the thing he did was the last thing that I had
looked for. Not to her did he turn; not to her, but to me, and he dropped
on one knee before me.
"My lord!" he cried, and before he added another word I knew already what
else he was about to say.
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