He found the alchymist still seated in his visionary contemplation of the moon.  “Come hither, my son,” said he, with his usual enthusiasm, “come, read with me in this vast volume of wisdom, thus nightly unfolded for our perusal.  Wisely did the Chaldean sages affirm, that the heaven is as a mystic page, uttering speech to those who can rightly understand; warning them of good and evil, and instructing them in the secret decrees of fate.”

The student’s heart ached for his venerable master; and, for a moment, he felt the futility of his occult wisdom.  “Alas! poor old man!” thought he, “of what avails all thy study?  Little dost thou dream, while busied in airy speculations among the stars, what a treason against thy happiness is going on under thine eyes; as it were, in thy very bosom!—­Oh Inez!  Inez! where shall we look for truth and innocence, where shall we repose confidence in woman, if even you can deceive?”

It was a trite apostrophe, such as every lover makes when he finds his mistress not quite such a goddess as he had painted her.  With the student, however, it sprung from honest anguish of heart.  He returned to his lodgings, in pitiable confusion of mind.  He now deplored the infatuation that had led him on until his feelings were so thoroughly engaged.  He resolved to abandon his pursuits at the tower, and trust to absence to dispel the fascination by which he had been spellbound.  He no longer thirsted after the discovery of the grand elixir:  the dream of alchymy was over; for, without Inez, what was the value of the philosopher’s stone?

He rose, after a sleepless night, with the determination of taking his leave of the alchymist, and tearing himself from Granada.  For several days did he rise with the same resolution, and every night saw him come back to his pillow, to repine at his want of resolution, and to make fresh determinations for the morrow.  In the meanwhile, he saw less of Inez than ever.  She no longer walked in the garden, but remained almost entirely in her apartment.  When she met him, she blushed more than usual; and once hesitated, as if she would have spoken; but, after a temporary embarrassment, and still deeper blushes, she made some casual observation, and retired.  Antonio read, in this confusion, a consciousness of fault, and of that fault’s being discovered.  “What could she have wished to communicate?  Perhaps to account for the scene in the garden;—­but how can she account for it, or why should she account for it to me?  What am I to her?—­or rather, what is she to me?” exclaimed he, impatiently, with a new resolution to break through these entanglements of the heart, and fly from this enchanted spot for ever.

He was returning that very night to his lodgings, full of this excellent determination, when, in a shadowy part of the road, he passed a person whom he recognized, by his height and form, for his rival:  he was going in the direction of the tower.  If any lingering doubts remained, here was an opportunity of settling them completely.  He determined to follow this unknown cavalier, and, under favour of the darkness, observe his movements.  If he obtained access to the tower, or in any way a favourable reception, Antonio felt as if it would be a relief to his mind, and would enable him to fix his wavering resolution.