Armed _cap-à-pie_, the professor ran out after him, keeping pretty close to his heels, with the intention of catching him just as he entered. But the lady, being on the watch, opened the door suddenly for the pupil and shut it in her husband’s face. The professor began to knock and to call out with a furious noise. Extinguishing the light in a moment, the lady placed Bucciolo behind the door, and throwing her arms round her husband’s neck as he entered, motioned to her lover while she thus held his enemy to make his escape, and he, upon the husband’s rushing forward, slipped out from behind the door unperceived. She then began to scream as loud as she could, “Help, help! the professor has gone mad! Will nobody help me?” for he was in an ungovernable rage, and she clung faster to him than before. The neighbours running to her assistance and seeing the peaceable professor armed with deadly weapons, and his wife crying out, “Help, for the love of Heaven!—too much study hath driven him mad!” they readily believed such to be the fact. “Come, good signor,” they said, “what is all this about? Try to compose yourself—nay, do not struggle so hard, but let us help you to your couch.” “How can I rest, think you,” he replied, “while this wicked woman harbours paramours in my house? I saw him come in with my own eyes.” “Wretch that I am!” cried his wife. “Inquire of all my friends and neighbours whether any one of them ever saw anything the least unbecoming in my conduct.” The whole party with one voice entreated the professor to lay such thoughts aside, for there was not a better lady breathing, or one who set a higher value upon her reputation. “But how can that be,” said he, “when I saw him enter the house, and he is in it now?” In the meanwhile the lady’s two brothers arrived, when she began to weep bitterly, exclaiming, “O my dear brothers, my poor husband has gone mad—quite mad, and he even says there is a man in the house. I believe he would kill me if he could; but you know me too well to listen for a moment to such a story,” and she continued to weep.