Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/107

 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?