the past night came horribly back to his mind, the Englishman uttered a
cry, and covered his face with his hands.

"Good morrow, Excellency!" said Paolo, gayly. "Corpo di Bacco, you have
slept soundly!"

The sound of this man's voice, so lusty, ringing, and healthful, served
to scatter before it the phantasma that yet haunted Glyndon's memory.

He rose erect in his bed. "And where did you find me? Why are you here?"

"Where did I find you!" repeated Paolo, in surprise,--"in your bed, to
be sure. Why am I here!--because the Padrone bade me await your waking,
and attend your commands."

"The Padrone, Mejnour!--is he arrived?"

"Arrived and departed, signor. He has left this letter for you."

"Give it me, and wait without till I am dressed."

"At your service. I have bespoke an excellent breakfast: you must be
hungry. I am a very tolerable cook; a monk's son ought to be! You will
be startled at my genius in the dressing of fish. My singing, I
trust, will not disturb you. I always sing while I prepare a salad; it
harmonises the ingredients." And slinging his carbine over his shoulder,
Paolo sauntered from the room, and closed the door.

Glyndon was already deep in the contents of the following letter:--

"When I first received thee as my pupil, I promised Zanoni, if convinced
by thy first trials that thou couldst but swell, not the number of our
order, but the list of the victims who have aspired to it in vain, I
would not rear thee to thine own wretchedness and doom,--I would dismiss
thee back to the world. I fulfil my promise. Thine ordeal has been the
easiest that neophyte ever knew. I asked for nothing but abstinence from
the sensual, and a brief experiment of thy patience and thy faith. Go
back to thine own world; thou hast no nature to aspire to ours!

"It was I who prepared Paolo to receive thee at the revel. It was I who
instigated the old beggar to ask thee for alms. It was I who left open
the book that thou couldst not read without violating my command. Well,
thou hast seen what awaits thee at the threshold of knowledge. Thou hast
confronted the first foe that menaces him whom the senses yet grasp and
inthrall. Dost thou wonder that I close upon thee the gates forever?
Dost thou not comprehend, at last, that it needs a soul tempered and
purified and raised, not by external spells, but by its own sublimity
and valour, to pass the threshold and disdain the foe? Wretch! all
my silence avails nothing for