Here Mascari approached, and Zanoni, turning to the Italian, and waving his hand to Glyndon, drew the former aside.  Glyndon slowly departed.

“Mascari,” said Zanoni, “your patron is no more; your services will be valueless to his heir,—­a sober man whom poverty has preserved from vice.  For yourself, thank me that I do not give you up to the executioner; recollect the wine of Cyprus.  Well, never tremble, man; it could not act on me, though it might react on others; in that it is a common type of crime.  I forgive you; and if the wine should kill me, I promise you that my ghost shall not haunt so worshipful a penitent.  Enough of this; conduct me to the chamber of Viola Pisani.  You have no further need of her.  The death of the jailer opens the cell of the captive.  Be quick; I would be gone.”

Mascari muttered some inaudible words, bowed low, and led the way to the chamber in which Viola was confined.

CHAPTER 3.XVIII.

     Merc:  Tell me, therefore, what thou seekest after, and what thou
     wilt have.  What dost thou desire to make?

     Alch:  The Philosopher’s Stone.

     Sandivogius.

It wanted several minutes of midnight, and Glyndon repaired to the appointed spot.  The mysterious empire which Zanoni had acquired over him, was still more solemnly confirmed by the events of the last few hours; the sudden fate of the prince, so deliberately foreshadowed, and yet so seemingly accidental, brought out by causes the most commonplace, and yet associated with words the most prophetic, impressed him with the deepest sentiments of admiration and awe.  It was as if this dark and wondrous being could convert the most ordinary events and the meanest instruments into the agencies of his inscrutable will; yet, if so, why have permitted the capture of Viola?  Why not have prevented the crime rather than punish the criminal?  And did Zanoni really feel love for Viola?  Love, and yet offer to resign her to himself,—­to a rival whom his arts could not have failed to baffle.  He no longer reverted to the belief that Zanoni or Viola had sought to dupe him into marriage.  His fear and reverence for the former now forbade the notion of so poor an imposture.  Did he any longer love Viola himself?  No; when that morning he had heard of her danger, he had, it is true, returned to the sympathies and the fears of affection; but with the death of the prince her image faded from his heart, and he felt no jealous pang at the thought that she had been saved by Zanoni,—­that at that moment she was perhaps beneath his roof.  Whoever has, in the course of his life, indulged the absorbing passion of the gamester, will remember how all other pursuits and objects vanished from his mind; how solely he was wrapped in the one wild delusion; with what a sceptre of magic power the despot-demon ruled every feeling and every thought.  Far more intense than the passion of the gamester was the frantic