The Disputation‘In sight of this,’ he commanded, ‘speak!’
Gregorius knelt down, with folded hands.
‘That will I,’ said he, ‘however ill I may succeed in it. For never can my lips thank you fitly, Father and lord, for all you have done for me. Yet I swear to you faithfully that all the days of my life I will add my voice and importune Him who leaves no good deed unrewarded, that He may crown you with a heavenly crown for that you have brought me up, a strange boy, me, a poor foundling, so tenderly before all your people.’
Again the Abbot started, but quite differently. The last remnant of the morning blush paled from his little nose.
‘What are you saying?’ said he, low and hurriedly, seizing Grigorss’s clasped hands in his.
‘I have been deceived,’ the other went on and bent deep as tho
