"A strange feeling now took possession of me, which I could not account for. The whole plot rushed over me with a force which I must confess sent a cold chill down my back. I began to think: This man had forced himself upon me not once, but twice; had set up the best bottle of wine he could buy, and was now about to steer me into a den. Then the thought rose in my mind--I could handle any two of him, and if I give way now and he finds I am over-cautious or suspicious, it will only make it worse for me when I see him again. This was followed by a common-sense view of the whole situation. The mystery in it, after all, if there was any mystery, was one of my own making. To ask a man who had been dining with you to come to your lodging was neither a suspicious nor an unusual thing. Besides, while he had been often brusque, and at times curt, he had shown me nothing but kindness, and had tried only to please me. "My mind was made up instantly. I determined to follow the affair to the end. "'Yes, I'll go,' and I pulled my umbrella into shape, opened it with a flop, and stepped from the shelter of the doorway into the pelt of the driving rain. "We kept on up the Fondamenta, crossed the bridge by the side of the Canal of San Vio as far as the Caffè Calcina, and then out on the Zattero, which was being soused with the waves of the Giudecca breaking over the coping of its pavement. Hugging the low wall of Clara Montalba's garden, he keeping out of the wind as best he could, we passed the church of San Rosario and stopped at the same low door opening into the building next to Pietro's wine-shop--the one I had seen him enter when I was painting. The caffè was still open, for the glow of its lights streamed out upon the night and was reflected in the rain-drenched pavement. Then a thought struck me: "'Come in here a moment,' I said to him, and I pushed in Pietro's door. "'Pietro,' I called out, so that everybody in the caffè could hear, 'I'm going up to Mr. Diffendorfer's room. Better get a fiasco of Chianti ready--the old kind you have in the cellar. When I want it I'll send for it.' If I was going into a trap it was just as well to let somebody know whom I was last seen with. The boys had seen me go out with him, but nobody knew where he lived or where he had taken me. I was ashamed of it as soon as I had said it, but somehow I felt as if it were just as well to keep my eyes open. "Diffendorfer pushed past me and called out to Pietro, in a half-angry tone: "'No, don't you send it. I've got all the wine we'll want,' turned on his heel, held his door open for me to pass in, and slammed it behind us.