indeed, unfit for all such company, and the influence of the covenant, made me daily more mysterious and close in my conduct. It was in the middle of spring, when I returned to my rural solitude; I found Don Pedro's house as deserted as I left it, and could not discover the smallest traces of the fate of that unfortunate pair. One day, I found a little key on a side-table, with which I unlocked a bureau and found some of Pedro's writings in it. They belonged to the Cabal, and taking them home with me, I devoted whole days and nights to study them, in hopes of making some important discovery.
Thus occupied, I once sat up till one o'clock in the morning. Every body had retired to rest, and having opened one of the windows of my bed-chamber which faced the garden, to brace my nerves with the aromatic exhalations of the blossom of the lemon trees, I heard a loud knocking at the large gate. I shuddered with fright. What could it be?
