But the
protection which the Paduan Doctor received from some friends of
interest and consequence enabled him to set these imputations at
defiance, and to assume, even in the city of Edinburgh, famed as
it was for abhorrence of witches and necromancers, the dangerous
character of an expounder of futurity. It was at length rumoured
that, for a certain gratification, which of course was not an
inconsiderable one, Doctor Baptista Damiotti could tell the fate
of the absent, and even show his visitors the personal form of
their absent friends, and the action in which they were engaged
at the moment. This rumour came to the ears of Lady Forester,
who had reached that pitch of mental agony in which the sufferer
will do anything, or endure anything, that suspense may be
converted into certainty.
Gentle and timid in most cases, her state of mind made her
equally obstinate and reckless, and it was with no small surprise
and alarm that her sister, Lady Bothwell, heard her express a
resolution to visit this man of art, and learn from him the fate
of her husband. Lady Bothwell remonstrated on the improbability
that such pretensions as those of this foreigner could be founded
in anything but imposture.
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