The Strolling Saint by Rafael Sabatini, Fiction 12+

🔖 O, my mood was finely rebellious that May morning. "Are you mad, Agostino?" gasped my mother. "I think that I am growing sane," said I very sadly. She flashed me one of her rare glances, and I saw her lips tighten. "We must talk," she said. "That girl . . .." And then she checked. "Come with me," she bade me. In that moment I remembered something, and I turned aside to look for my friend Rinolfo. The conviction that he went to plague and jeer at her, to exult over her expulsion from Mondolfo, kindled my anger all anew. "Stay! You there! Rinolfo!" I called. He stopped where he was. "Come here." I bade him. "I think you smiled just now," said I. "Heh! By Bacchus!" said he, and shrugged to give his insolence a barb. I went on, "You smiled to see your spite succeed. You smiled to see that poor child driven hence by your contriving; you smiled to see your broken snares avenged. And you were following after her no doubt to tell her all this and to smile again. This is all so, it is not?" "Heh! By Bacchus!" said he again, and at that my patience gave out utterly. Ere any could stop me I had seized him by throat and belt and shaken him savagely. "Will you answer me like a fool?" I cried. "Must you be taught sense and a proper respect of me?" I do not believe that it was in my mind to do the fellow any grievous hurt. But he was so ill-advised in that moment as to attempt to defend h...