“Shall I lay one place less?” asked the housekeeper.

“Certainly not,” said the Doctor.  “All my guests will be present.”  And he threw the piece of paper on the table.

The housekeeper left the room, but she had not been gone many minutes before she returned and said that Maria, the wife of the late Giovanni, the baker, wished to speak to him.  The Doctor nodded, and Maria burst into the room, sobbing.

When her tears had somewhat subsided she told her story in broken sentences.  Her daughter, Margherita, who was seventeen years old, had been allowed to spend the summer at Sorrento with her late father’s sister.  There, it appeared, she had met a “Signore,” who had given her jewels, made love to her, promised her marriage, and held clandestine meetings with her.  Her aunt professed now to have been unaware of this; but Maria assured the Doctor that her sister-in-law, who had the evil eye and had more than once trafficked with Satan, must have had knowledge of the business, even if she were not directly responsible, which was highly probable.  In the meantime Margherita’s brother Anselmo had returned from the wars in the North, and, discovering the truth, had sworn to kill the Signore unless he married Margherita.

“And what do you wish me to do?” asked the Doctor, after he had listened to the story.

“Anything, anything,” she answered, “only calm my son Anselmo or else there will be a disaster.”

“Who is the Signore?” asked the Doctor.

“The Conte Guido da Siena,” she answered.

The Doctor reflected a moment, and then said:  “I will see what can be done.  The matter can be arranged.  Send your son to me later.”  And then, after scolding Maria for not having taken proper care of her daughter, he sent her away.

As he did so he caught sight of the dirty piece of paper on his table.  For one second he had the impression that the letters on it were written in blood, and he shivered, but the momentary hallucination and sense of discomfort passed immediately.

At mid-day the guests arrived.  They consisted of Dr. Cornelius, Vienna’s most learned scholar; Taddeo Mainardi, the painter; a Danish student from the University of Wittenberg; a young English nobleman, who was travelling in Italy; and Guido da Siena, philosopher and poet, who was said to be the handsomest man in Italy.  The Doctor set before his guests a precious wine from Cyprus, in which he toasted them, although as a rule he drank only water.  The meal was served in the cool loggia overlooking the bay, and the talk, which was of the men and books of many climes, flowed like a rippling stream on which the sunshine of laughter lightly played.

The student asked the Doctor whether in Italy men of taste took any interest in the recent experiments of a French Huguenot, who professed to be able to send people into a trance.  Moreover, the patient when in the trance, so it was alleged, was able to act as a bridge between the material and the spiritual worlds, and the dead could be summoned and made to speak through the unconscious patient.