“No more, no more!” said Viola, in a stifled tone; “there must be the hand of fate in this.  I can speak to you no more now.  Farewell!” She sprung past him into the house, and closed the door.  Glyndon did not follow her, nor, strange as it may seem, was he so inclined.  The thought and recollection of that moonlit hour in the gardens, of the strange address of Zanoni, froze up all human passion.  Viola herself, if not forgotten, shrunk back like a shadow into the recesses of his breast.  He shivered as he stepped into the sunlight, and musingly retraced his steps into the more populous parts of that liveliest of Italian cities.

BOOK III. —­ THEURGIA.

     —­i cavalier sen vanno
     dove il pino fatal gli attende in porto. 
     Gerus.  Lib., cant. xv (Argomento.)

     The knights came where the fatal bark
     Awaited them in the port.

CHAPTER 3.I.

But that which especially distinguishes the brotherhood is their marvellous knowledge of all the resources of medical art.  They work not by charms, but simples.  —­“Ms. Account of the Origin and Attributes of the true Rosicrucians,” by J. Von D—.

At this time it chanced that Viola had the opportunity to return the kindness shown to her by the friendly musician whose house had received and sheltered her when first left an orphan on the world.  Old Bernardi had brought up three sons to the same profession as himself, and they had lately left Naples to seek their fortunes in the wealthier cities of Northern Europe, where the musical market was less overstocked.  There was only left to glad the household of his aged wife and himself, a lively, prattling, dark-eyed girl of some eight years old, the child of his second son, whose mother had died in giving her birth.  It so happened that, about a month previous to the date on which our story has now entered, a paralytic affection had disabled Bernardi from the duties of his calling.  He had been always a social, harmless, improvident, generous fellow—­living on his gains from day to day, as if the day of sickness and old age never was to arrive.  Though he received a small allowance for his past services, it ill sufficed for his wants,; neither was he free from debt.  Poverty stood at his hearth,—­when Viola’s grateful smile and liberal hand came to chase the grim fiend away.  But it is not enough to a heart truly kind to send and give; more charitable is it to visit and console.  “Forget not thy father’s friend.”  So almost daily went the bright idol of Naples to the house of Bernardi.  Suddenly a heavier affliction than either poverty or the palsy befell the old musician.  His grandchild, his little Beatrice, fell ill, suddenly and dangerously ill, of one of those rapid fevers common to the South; and Viola was summoned from her strange and fearful reveries of love or fancy, to the sick-bed of the young sufferer.