“Nothing easier.  If you will come with me, I will present him to your Excellency,” said the priest.  “Do you still wish to see the documents?”

“It is useless.  The mystery is solved.  Let us go and see this new-found relation of mine.”

Don Paolo wrapped his cloak around him, and ushering his guest from the room, led the way down-stairs.  He carried a bit of wax taper, which he held low to the steps, frequently stopping and warning the Prince to be careful.  It was night when they went out.  The air was sharp and cold, and Saracinesca buttoned his greatcoat to his throat as he strode by the side of the old priest.  The two walked on in silence for ten minutes, keeping straight down the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele.  At last the curate stopped before a clean, new house, from the windows of which the bright light streamed into the street.  Don Paolo motioned to the Prince to enter, and followed him in.  A man in a white apron, with his arms full of plates, who was probably servant, butler, boots, and factotum to the establishment, came out of the dining-room, which was to the left of the entrance, and which, to judge by the noise, seemed to be full of people.  He looked at the curate, and then at the Prince.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Don Paolo mio,” he said, supposing the priest had brought a customer—­“very sorry; there is not a bed in the house.”

“That is no matter, Giacchino,” answered the curate.  “We want to see Sor Giovanni for a moment.”  The man disappeared, and a moment later Sor Giovanni himself came down the passage.

“Favorisca, dear Don Paolo, come in.”  And he bowed to the Prince as he opened the door which led into a small sitting-room reserved for the innkeeper’s family.

When they had entered, Saracinesca looked at his son’s namesake.  He saw before him a man whose face and figure he long remembered with an instinctive dislike.  Giovanni the innkeeper was of a powerful build.  Two generations of peasant blood had given renewed strength to the old race.  He was large, with large bones, vast breadth of shoulder, and massive joints; lean withal, and brown of face, his high cheek-bones making his cheeks look hollow; clean shaved, his hair straight and black and neatly combed; piercing black eyes near together, the heavy eyebrows joining together in the midst of his forehead; thin and cruel lips, now parted in a smile and showing a formidable set of short, white, even teeth; a prominent square jaw, and a broad, strong nose, rather unnaturally pointed,—­altogether a striking face, one that would be noticed in a crowd for its strength, but strangely cunning in expression, and not without ferocity.  Years afterwards Saracinesca remembered his first meeting with Giovanni the innkeeper, and did not wonder that his first impulse had been to dislike the man.  At present, however, he looked at him with considerable curiosity, and if he disliked him at first sight, he told himself that it was beneath him to show antipathy for an innkeeper.