He had been to such people before, as has been said, and he had generally seen or heard something which had either interested or amused him.

He had never had such an experience as this.
He had never heard a voice of which he had been so certain that it did not come from any one in the room, and he had never found any somnambulist who had so instantly grasped his most secret thoughts, without the slightest assistance or leading word from himself.

Yet at the crucial test--the question of a certainty in the future, this one had stopped short as all stopped, or failed in their predictions of what was to come.

He had been startled and almost frightened.

Like many Southern Italians, he was at once credulous and sceptical--a superstitious unbeliever, if one may couple the two words into one expression.