"Listen," she said, and her eyes, raised for a moment, comprehended both of
us in their glance. "There is something that it were best I tell you, that
once for all you may fathom the depth of my purpose for Agostino here. My
lord his father was a man of blood and strife..."
"And so were many whose names stand to-day upon the roll of saints and are
its glory," answered the friar with quick asperity.
"But they did not raise their arms against the Holy Church and against
Christ's Own most holy Vicar, as did he," she reminded him sorrowfully.
"The sword is an ill thing save when it is wielded in a holy cause. In my
lord's hands, wielded in the unholiest of all causes, it became a thing
accursed. But God's anger overtook him and laid him low at Perugia in all
the strength and vigour that had made him arrogant as Lucifer. It was
perhaps well for all of us that it so befell."
"Madonna!" cried Gervasio in stern horror.
But she went on quite heedless of him. "Best of all was it for me, since I
was spared the harshest duty that can be imposed upon a woman and a wife.
It was necessary that he should expiate the evil he had wrought; moreover,
his life was become a menace to my child's salvation. It was his wish to
make of Agostino such another as himself, to lead his only son adown the
path of Hell.
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