The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance.
“Wait a minute and get your breath,” said the doctor. “Are you not a little overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. He keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the Old Tavern, he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow he pulled out of the water, or rescued somehow,—I don't believe he avoids the whole human race. He does not look as if he hated them, so far as I have remarked his expression. I passed a few words with him when his man was ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I don't believe it is much more than an extreme case of shyness, connected, perhaps, with some congenital or other personal repugnance to which has been given the name of an antipathy.”
Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When he finished, she began the account of her discovery:
“I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in an Italian medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with a reference which led me to look over a file of the Giornale degli Ospitali lying among the old pamphlets in the medical section of the Library. I have made a translation of it, which you must read and then tell me if you do not agree with me in my conclusion.”
“Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see for myself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you seem to have reached.”
Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of a map of the world, as she said,
“I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of the bite of a TARANTULA!”
The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way the stories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but he had consigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many fictions have clothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. He looked into the round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as if he feared that she was in a state of undue excitement, but, true to his professional training, he waited for another symptom, if indeed her mind was in any measure off its balance.
“I know what you are thinking,” Lurida said, “but it is not so. 'I am not mad, most noble Festus.' You shall see the evidence and judge for yourself. Read the whole case,—you can read my hand almost as if it were print, and tell me if you do not agree with me that this young man is in all probability the same person as the boy described in the Italian journal,
“One thing you might say is against the supposition. The young patient is spoken of as Signorino M—— Ch——— But you must remember that ch is pronounced hard in Italian, like k, which letter is wanting in the Italian alphabet; and it is natural enough that the initial of the second name should have got changed in the record to its Italian equivalent.”