“You are to receive no more letters from Germany.” “Obedience is easy. It is not likely that I will get another for many a long day.” “Come, then, Signor Compelli has arranged a delightful mask up by the grotto. We are to act the fifth eclogue of Vergil. He is to be Menalcas and we ask you to be Mopsus.” “No doubt heaven intended me for a shepherd,” I rejoined dryly, and did my best to please them all the afternoon. * * * * * Marianna’s injunction, however, was broken far sooner than anticipated. Only a week after the coming of Von Steinitz’s letter a barefoot friar came to the palazzo. He was on pilgrimage to Rome, he said, and had turned aside from Perugia to deliver this. Andrea brought the packet to me just as I had returned from a luncheon upon the rocks. It was in vigorous, though not hyper-polished Latin, and in a strong, firm hand. I read it like a man possessed. “_Martin Luther, Augustinian friar, to the right noble Graf Walter von Lichtenstein zum Regenstein, my good friend_; grace and peace be to you through our Lord Jesus Christ. “A blunt man God made me; if then my bluntness offends, His, not mine, must be the blame. Dearest Graf, I do not write you now, because I have looked for you in Wittenberg all these months and seen you not. I write you because tales strange and grievous of your manner of life have come from Italy even to Saxony, borne by too many travellers for me to doubt their truth. And now in my ears sounds the warning of God through Ezekiel the Prophet, saying, ‘When thou speakest not to warn the wicked from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thy hand.’ Therefore lest His displeasure be upon me I am constrained to speak. “Did I not love you, nevertheless I would strive the more to be silent, yet now I feel even as did Paul bereft of his friend Demas, ‘who,’ he wrote, ‘hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.’ Again, did I not see you noble, rich, gifted with all manner of earthly knowledge, fitted to play a notable part in the battle betwixt Michael and his angels and the Dragon and his angels, I would yet strive to be silent. But silent now I cannot be, for I have yearned for you. “What has bewitched you? Who has ensnared you and plucked you away from the works of God to the works of the devil? Ah! the devil is crafty and strong, and we are told can array himself as an angel of light. Is it as an angel that he has come to you? Has some woman of glozing tongue and unvirtuous heart spoken unto you, and have you been beguiled? Are you in the case of the simple wayfarer, to whom she has said, ‘Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ Remember then the remainder of the tale, ‘He knoweth not that the dead are there and that her guests are in the depths of hell.’