ign from my mother, and we three--Gervasio, my mother,
and I--were left alone.

And here let me say a word of Fra Gervasio. He was, as I have already
written, my father's foster-brother. That is to say, he was the child
of a sturdy peasant-woman of the Val di Taro, from whose lusty, healthy
breast my father had suckled the first of that fine strength that had
been his own.

He was older than my father by a month or so, and as often happens in
such cases, he was brought to Mondolfo to be first my father's playmate,
and later, no doubt, to have followed him as a man-at-arms. But a chill
that he took in his tenth year as a result of a long winter immersion in
the icy waters of the Taro laid him at the point of death, and left
him thereafter of a rather weak and sickly nature. But he was quick
and intelligent, and was admitted to learn his letters with my father,
whence it ensued that he developed a taste for study. Seeing that by
his health he was debarred from the hardy open life of a soldier, his
scholarly aptitude was encouraged, and it was decided that he should
follow a clerical career.

He had entered the order of St. Francis; but after some years at
the Convent of Aguilona, his health having been indifferent and the
conventual rules too rigorous for his condition, he was given licence
to become the chaplain of Mondolfo. Here he had received the kindliest
treatment at the hands of my father, who entertained for his sometime
playmate a very real affection.

He was a tall, gaunt man with a sweet, kindly face, reflecting his
sweet, kindly nature; he had deep-set, dark eyes, very gentle in their
gaze, a tender mouth that was a little drawn by lines of suffering and
an upright wrinkle, deep as a gash, between his brows at the root of his
long, slender nose.

He it was that night who broke the silence that endured even after the
others had departed. He spoke at first as if communing with himself,
like a man who thinks aloud; and between his thumb and his long
forefinger, I remember that he kneaded a crumb of bread upon which his
eyes were intent.

"Gino Falcone is an old man, and he was my lord's best-loved servant. He
would have died for my lord, and joyfully; and now he is turned adrift,
to die to no purpose. Ah, well." He heaved a deep sigh and fell silent,
whilst I--the pent-up anguish in me suddenly released to hear my
thoughts thus expressed--fell soundlessly to weeping.

"Do you reprove me, Fra Gervasio?" q