drew the
curtains close across the open window, and settled down to wrestle with
the opening lines of the [Title in Greek] of Aeschylus.

But my thoughts wandered from the doings of the son of Iapetus, until at
last I flung down the book and sat back in my chair all lost in thought,
in doubt, and in conjecture. I became seriously introspective. I made an
examination not only of conscience, but of heart and mind, and I found
that I had gone woefully astray from the path that had been prepared for
me. Very late I sat there and sought to determine upon what I should do.

Suddenly, like a manna to my starving soul, came the memory of the last
talk I had with Fra Gervasio and the solemn warning he had given me.
That memory inspired me rightly. To-morrow--despite Messer Fifanti's
orders--I would take horse and ride to Mondolfo, there to confess
myself to Fra Gervasio and to be guided by his counsel. My mother's vows
concerning me I saw in their true light. They were not binding upon me;
indeed, I should be doing a hideous wrong were I to follow them against
my inclinations. I must not damn my soul for anything that my mother had
vowed or ever I was born, however much she might account that it would
be no more than filial piety so to do.

I was easier in mind after my resolve was taken, and I allowed that
mind of mine to stray thereafter as it listed. It took to thoughts of
Giuliana--Giuliana for whom I ached in every nerve, although I still
sought to conceal from myself the true cause of my suffering. Better
a thousand times had I envisaged that sinful fact and wrestled with it
boldly. Thus should I have had a chance of conquering myself and winning
clear of all the horror that lay before me.

That I was weak and irresolute at such a time, when I most needed
strength, I still think to-day--when I can take a calm survey of
all--was the fault of the outrageous rearing that was mine. At Mondolfo
they had so nurtured me and so sheltered me from the stinging blasts of
the world that I was grown into a very ripe and succulent fruit for the
Devil's mouth. The things to whose temptation usage would have rendered
me in some degree immune were irresistible to one who had been tutored
as had I.

Let youth know wickedness, lest when wickedness seeks a man out in his
riper years he shall be fooled and conquered by the beauteous garb in
which the Devil has the cunning to array it.

And yet to pretend that I was entirely innocent of w