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 heed to him.

I would to God I had flung back my head and told my mother--as he prompted me--that I was lord of Mondolfo, and that Falcone must remain since I so willed it.
I strove to do so out of my love for him rather than out of any such fine spirit as he sought to inspire in me.

Had I succeeded I had established my dominion, I had become arbiter of my fate; and how much of misery, of anguish, and of sin might I not thereafter have been spared! The hour was crucial, though I knew it not.

I stood at a parting of ways; yet for lack of courage I hesitated to take the road to which so invitingly he beckoned me.
And then, before I could make any answer such as I desired, such as I strove to make, my mother spoke again, and by her tone, which had grown faltering and tearful--as was her wont in the old days when she ruled my father--she riveted anew the fetters I was endeavouring with all the strength of my poor young soul to snap.
"Tell him, Agostino, that your will is as your mother's.