Antonio would attend these peripatetic lectures with all the ardour of a devotee; but there was another circumstance which may have given a secret charm to them.  The garden was the resort also of Inez, where she took her walks of recreation; the only exercise that her secluded life permitted.  As Antonio was duteously pacing by the side of his instructor, he would often catch a glimpse of the daughter, walking pensively about the alleys in the soft twilight.  Sometimes they would meet her unexpectedly, and the heart of the student would throb with agitation.  A blush, too, would crimson the cheek of Inez, but still she passed on and never joined them.

He had remained one evening until rather a late hour with the alchymist in this favourite resort.  It was a delightful night after a sultry day, and the balmy air of the garden was peculiarly reviving.  The old man was seated on a fragment of a pedestal, looking like a part of the ruin on which he sat.  He was edifying his pupil by long lessons of wisdom from the stars, as they shone out with brilliant lustre in the dark-blue vault of a southern sky; for he was deeply versed in Behmen, and other of the Rosicrucians, and talked much of the signature of earthly things and passing events, which may be discerned in the heavens; of the power of the stars over corporeal beings, and their influence on the fortunes of the sons of men.

By degrees the moon rose and shed her gleaming light among the groves.  Antonio apparently listened with fixed attention to the sage, but his ear was drinking in the melody of Inez’s voice, who was singing to her lute in one of the moonlight glades of the garden.  The old man, having exhausted his theme, sat gazing in silent reverie at the heavens.  Antonio could not resist an inclination to steal a look at this coy beauty, who was thus playing the part of the nightingale, so sequestered and musical.  Leaving the alchymist in his celestial reverie, he stole gently along one of the alleys.  The music had ceased, and he thought he heard the sound of voices.  He came to an angle of a copse that had screened a kind of green recess, ornamented by a marble fountain.  The moon shone full upon the place, and by its light he beheld his unknown, serenading rival at the feet of Inez.  He was detaining her by the hand, which he covered with kisses; but at sight of Antonio he started up and half drew his sword, while Inez, disengaged, fled back to the house.

All the jealous doubts and fears of Antonio were now confirmed.  He did not remain to encounter the resentment of his happy rival at being thus interrupted, but turned from the place in sudden wretchedness of heart.  That Inez should love another, would have been misery enough; but that she should be capable of a dishonourable amour, shocked him to the soul.  The idea of deception in so young and apparently artless a being, brought with it that sudden distrust in human nature, so sickening to a youthful and ingenuous mind; but when he thought of the kind, simple parent she was deceiving, whose affections all centred in her, he felt for a moment a sentiment of indignation, and almost of aversion.