ein 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. For never yet had I been so addressed in
my lordship of Mondolfo. To all there I was just the Madonnino. But to
Falcone, in that supreme hour of his need, I was become his lord.

"My lord," he said, then. "Is it your wish that I should go?"

I drew back, still wrought upon by my surprise; and then my mother's
voice came cold and acid.

"The Madonnino's wish is not concerned in this, Mester Falcone. It is I
who order your departure."

Falcone did not answer her; he affected not to hear her, and continued
to address himself to me.

"You are the master here, my lord," he urged. "You are the law in
Mondolfo. You carry life and death in your right hand, and against your
will no man or woman in your lordship can prevail."

He spoke the truth, a mighty truth which had stood like a mountain
before me all these months, yet which I had not seen.

"I shall go or remain as you decree, my lord," he added; and then,
almost in a snarl of defiance, "I obey none other," he concluded, "nor
pope nor devil."

"Agostino, I am waiting for you," came my mother's voice from the
doorway.

Something had me by the throat. It was Temptation, and old Falcone
was the tempter. More than that was he--though how much more I did not
dream, nor with what authority he acted there. He was the Mentor who
showed me the road to freedom and to manhood; he showed me how at a blow
I might shiver the chains that held me, and shake them from me like the
cobwebs that they were. He tested me, too; tried my courage and my
will; and to my undoing was it that he found me wanting in that hour. My
regrets for him went near to giving me the resolution that I lacked. Yet
even these fell short.

I would to God I had given