“It is not impossible,” said Fra Gervasio. “What is your story, Agostino?”
I told it--how the child out of a very gentle and Christian pity had released the poor birds that were taken in Rinolfo's limed twigs, and how in a fury he had made to beat her, so that she had fled to me for shelter and protection; and how, thereupon, I had bidden him begone out of that garden, and never set foot in it again.
“And now,” I ended, “you know all the violence that I showed him, and the reason for it. If you say that I did wrong, I warn you that I shall not believe you.”
“Indeed...” began the friar with a faint smile of friendliness. But my mother interrupted him, betwixt sorrow and anger.
“He lies, Gervasio. He lies shamelessly. O, into what a morass of sin has he not fallen, and every moment he goes deeper! Have I not said that he is possessed? We shall need the exorcist.”
“We shall indeed, madam mother, to clear your mind of foolishness,” I answered hotly, for it stung me to the soul to be branded thus a liar, to have my word discredited by that of a lout such as Rinolfo.
She rose a sombre pillar of indignation. “Agostino, I am your mother,” she reminded me.
“Let us thank God that for that, at least, you cannot blame me,” answered I, utterly reckless now.
The answer crushed her back into her chair. She looked appealingly at Fra Gervasio, who stood glum and frowning. “Is he... is he perchance bewitched?” she asked the friar, quite seriously. “Do you think that any spells might have.”
He interrupted her with a wave of the hand and an impatient snort
“We are at cross purposes here,” he said. “Agostino does not lie. For that I will answer.”
“But, Fra Gervasio, I tell you that I saw them--that I saw them with these two eyes--sitting together on the terrace steps, and he had his arm about her. Yet he denies it shamelessly to my face.”
“Said I ever a word of that?” I appealed me to the friar. “Why, that was after Rinolfo left us. My tale never got so far. It is quite true. I did sit beside her. The child was troubled. I comforted her. Where was the harm?”
“The harm?” quoth he. “And you had your arm about her--and you to be a priest one day?”
“And why not, pray?” quoth I. “Is this some new sin that you have discovered--or that you have kept hidden from me until now? To console the afflicted is an ordination of Mother Church; to love our fellow-creatures an ordination of our Blessed Lord Himself. I was performing both. Am I to be abused for that?”