 ghost of your relation enjoy that rest in
the tomb, which the Almighty's vengeance has denied to me for ever!«
    Here the stranger prepared to quit the apartment.
    »Stay yet one moment!« said I; »you have satisfied my curiosity with regard
to the spectre, but you leave me a prey to yet greater respecting yourself.
Deign to inform me to whom I am under such real obligations. You mention
circumstances long past, and persons long dead: you were personally acquainted
with the exorciser, who, by your own account, has been deceased near a century.
How am I to account for this? What means that burning cross upon your forehead,
and why did the sight of it strike such horror to my soul?«
    On these points he for some time refused to satisfy me. At length, overcome
by my entreaties, he consented to clear up the whole, on condition that I would
defer his explanation till the next day. With this request I was obliged to
comply, and he left me. In the morning my first care was to enquire after the
mysterious stranger. Conceive my disappointment, when informed that he had
already quitted Ratisbon. I dispatched messengers in pursuit of him, but in
vain. No traces of the fugitive were discovered. Since that moment I never have
heard any more of him, and 'tis most probable that I never shall.
    [Lorenzo here interrupted his friend's narrative:
    »How!« said he, »you have never discovered who he was, or even formed a
guess?«
    »Pardon me,« replied the marquis: »when I related this adventure to my
uncle, the cardinal-duke, he told me, that he had no doubt of this singular
man's being the celebrated character known universally by the name of the
wandering Jew. His not being permitted to pass more than fourteen days on the
same spot, the burning cross impressed upon his forehead, the effect which it
produced upon the beholders, and many other circumstances, gave this supposition
the colour of truth. The cardinal is fully persuaded of it; and for my own part
I am inclined to adopt the only solution which offers itself to this riddle.« I
return to the narrative from which I have digressed.]
    From this period I recovered my health so rapidly as to astonish my
physicians. The bleeding nun appeared no more, and I was soon able to set out
for Lindenberg. The baron received me with open arms. I confided to him the
sequel of my adventure; and he was not a little pleased to
