Thus encouraged, Adrian told him a great deal, so much, indeed, that the Senor Ramiro, nodding in the shadow of his hood, began to wonder whether the spy behind the cupboard door, expert as he was, could possibly make his pen keep pace with these outpourings.  Oh! it was a dreary task, but he kept to it, and by putting in a sentence here and there artfully turned the conversation to matters of faith.

“No need to fence with me,” he said presently.  “I know how you have been brought up, how through no fault of your own you have wandered out of the warm bosom of the true Church to sit at the clay feet of the conventicle.  You doubt it?  Well, let me look again, let me look.  Yes, only last week you were seated in a whitewashed room overhanging the market-place.  I see it all—­an ugly little man with a harsh voice is preaching, preaching what I think blasphemy.  Baskets—­baskets?  What have baskets to do with him?”

“I believe he used to make them,” interrupted Adrian, taking the bait.

“That may be it, or perhaps he will be buried in one; at any rate he is strangely mixed up with baskets.  Well, there are others with you, a middle-aged, heavy-faced man, is he not Dirk van Goorl, your stepfather?  And—­wait—­a young fellow with rather a pleasant face, also a relation.  I see his name, but I can’t spell it.  F—­F—­o—­i, faith in the French tongue, odd name for a heretic.”

“F-o-y—­Foy,” interrupted Adrian again.

“Indeed!  Strange that I should have mistaken the last letter, but in the spirit sight and hearing these things chance:  then there is a great man with a red beard.”

“No, Master, you’re wrong,” said Adrian with emphasis; “Martin was not there; he stopped behind to watch the house.”

“Are you sure?” asked the seer doubtfully.  “I look and I seem to see him,” and he stared blankly at the wall.

“So you might see him often enough, but not at last week’s meeting.”

It is needless to follow the conversation further.  The seer, by aid of a ball of crystal that he produced from the folds of his cloak, described his spirit visions, and the pupil corrected them from his intimate knowledge of the facts, until the Senor Ramiro and his confederates in the cupboard had enough evidence, as evidence was understood in those days, to burn Dirk, Foy, and Martin three times over, and, if it should suit him, Adrian also.  Then for that night they parted.

Next evening Adrian was back again with the finger in the bottle, which Meg grabbed as a pike snatches at a frog, and further fascinating conversation ensued.  Indeed, Adrian found this well of mystic lore tempered with shrewd advice upon love affairs and other worldly matters, and with flattery of his own person and gifts, singularly attractive.

Several times did he return thus, for as it chanced Elsa had been unwell and kept her room, so that he discovered no opportunity of administering the magic philtre that was to cause her heart to burn with love for him.