"There is something that it were best I tell you, that once for all you may fathom the depth of my purpose for Agostino here.

My lord his father was a man of blood and strife..." "And so were many whose names stand to-day upon the roll of saints and are its glory," answered the friar with quick asperity.
"But they did not raise their arms against the Holy Church and against Christ's Own most holy Vicar, as did he," she reminded him sorrowfully.
"The sword is an ill thing save when it is wielded in a holy cause.

In my lord's hands, wielded in the unholiest of all causes, it became a thing accursed.

But God's anger overtook him and laid him low at Perugia in all the strength and vigour that had made him arrogant as Lucifer.

It was perhaps well for all of us that it so befell." "Madonna!" cried Gervasio in stern horror.
But she went on quite heedless of him.