on,
what remained of the woman in her was moved to pity; whether my cry
acting like a rod of Moses upon that rock of her heart which excess of
piety had long since sterilized, touched into fresh life the springs
that had long since been dry, and reminded her of the actual bond
between us, her tone was more kindly and gentle than I had ever known
it.

"Agostino, my child! Why are you here?" And her wax-like fingers very
gently touched my head. "Why are you here--and thus? What has happened
to you?"

"Me miserable!" I groaned.

"What is it?" she pressed me, an increasing anxiety in her voice.

At last I found courage to tell her sufficient to prepare her mind.

"Mother, I am a sinner," I faltered miserably.

I felt her recoiling from me as from the touch of something unclean and
contagious, her mind conceiving already by some subtle premonition some
shadow of the thing that I had done. And then Gervasio spoke, and his
voice was soothing as oil upon troubled waters.

"Sinners are we all, Agostino. But repentance purges sin. Do not abandon
yourself to despair, my son."

But the mother who bore me took no such charitable and Christian view.

"What is it? Wretched boy, what have you done?" And the cold repugnance
in her voice froze anew the courage I was forming.

"O God help me! God help me!" I groaned miserably.

Gervasio, seeing my condition, with that quick and saintly sympathy that
was his, came softly towards me and set a hand upon my shoulder.

"Dear Agostino," he murmured, "would you find it easier to tell me
first? Will you confess to me, my son? Will you let me lift this burden
from your soul?"

Still on my knees I turned and looked up into that pale, kindly face.
I caught his thin hand, and kissed it ere he could snatch it away.
"If there were more priests like you," I cried, "there would be fewer
sinners like me."

A shadow crossed his face; he smiled very wanly, a smile that was like a
gleam of pale sunshine from an over-clouded sky, and he spoke in gentle,
soothing words of the Divine Mercy.

I staggered to my bruised feet. "I will confess to you, Fra Gervasio," I
said, "and afterwards we will tell my mother."

She looked as she would make demur. But Fra Gervasio checked any such
intent.

"It is best so, Madonna," he said gravely. "His most urgent need is the
consolation that the Church alone can give."

He took me by the arm very gently, and led me forth. We went to his
modest chamber, w