herself a creation of Satan, who had staked his
honor, to seduce the _primus omnium_ of the college at Venice from the
right path? Who but Satan had prompted him to make an appointment with
Lydia on the most disreputable of the cross-roads, when hundreds of
less suspicious places might have been chosen.

But how, by all the Saints, did Lydia manage to comply with his
bidding? Was she in reality as well acquainted with the Holtermann, as
the witch asserted? "Whence moreover does she get this supernatural
beauty?" Oh, now was it clear to him why his heart burnt with those
flames. But suddenly he laughed ironically to himself: "And the fool's
daughter at the Hirsch was she also a witch? and how about the young
girls in the Chapel?" Buried in such thoughts he reached a solitary
footpath, and sank down wearily on the stump of a tree. With his head
in his hands in a profound melancholy he gazed about him. "I was
bewitched," he sighed aloud.

"Every man is tempted, when excited and allured by his own wicked
passions," said a grave voice near him. The timid fugitive jumped up
terrified; he feared for his own safety. But near him stood the
Baptist. The Priest thoroughly cowed gazed at the weather-beaten face
of the dread heretic. The latter continued calmly: "Nevertheless when
passion has conceived, it begets sin, and the wages of sin, is death."

The young man covered his pale face with his hands and sank down again
on his seat, bowing his head before the strange old man.

"I grieve for you, Magister Laurenzano," continued the Baptist. "I have
always looked on you as a brave man, who might do much good in the
service of our Lord God with the talents bestowed on him, if he would
only throw aside the cowl, which has encircled him, and if he only had
the courage to abjure the vows in which he has been ensnared. Bid
_valet_ to the papists, take a wife, as you have not the strength to
live as monk, and live well or ill from the labor of your hands, or the
productions of your brain."

Laurenzano shook his head sorrowfully, and a choked sob was his only
answer.

"I cannot tarry here longer," said the old man, "and wisdom does not
proceed from weeping men. The officers of justice, whom you have
brought on me, are now already perhaps at my heels, and my son is
waiting for me. But this I will say to you: In case that danger should
arise for Erastus' daughter, owing to the charge made by Sibylla, you
must surrender yourself and tel