She dispatched some to help Giojoso, others she sent in urgent quest of Fra Gervasio, me she hurried along to her private dining-room.

I went very obediently, and even a little fearfully now that my passion had fallen from me.
There, in that cheerless room, which not even the splashes of sunlight falling from the high-placed windows upon the whitewashed wall could help to gladden, I stood a little sullenly what time she first upbraided me and then wept bitterly, sitting in her high-backed chair at the table's head.
At last Gervasio came, anxious and flurried, for already he had heard some rumour of what had chanced.

His keen eyes went from me to my mother and then back again to me.
"What has happened ?" he asked.
"What has not happened ?" wailed my mother.

"Agostino is possessed." He knit his brows.

"Possessed ?" quoth he.
"Ay, possessed--possessed of devils.