When Bernard began to get better, the interesting intelligence came to his ears, that Maitre Henry, confessor of the Emperor Ferdinand III., possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone. Our adept, therefore, set out at once for Germany, and by means of the good offices of friends, and the liberal expenditure of money, obtained an introduction to the fortunate man. With him he set to work with a good heart; but after rectifying and dissolving till they were tired, he found that he had only succeeded in melting away 300 crowns more of his wealth. The thing grew serious. He was now fifty-eight. He could afford to dally no longer: it was necessary to find the secret of the hermetic science at once, or give up the search. Trevisan pondered over his critical position for two entire months; but at the end of that time a ray of hope flashed across the gloom of his meditations. The nature of the hope we do not know; we can only tell what was the course of action on which it determined him. He arose suddenly from his depression, and, girding up his loins, began to travel. He went first to Rome; then to Spain; then to Turkey; then to Greece. He passed into Egypt; then into Barbary; then visited Rhodes; and then traversed a portion of Palestine and Persia. He then returned to France, by way of Messina, and visited England, Scotland, and finally Germany. Wherever he went, it was the same thing. The phantom he followed fled as he pursued; and alike in the heart of London, and in the deserts of the Holy Land, he saw appearing, and then vanishing, in the distance-- The unreached paradise of his despair. That the secret existed, there could be no doubt; for it was a part of Trevisan's creed that it was born before the Flood; that it was revealed to the Israelites in their passage through the Desert; and that it had thus been handed down through the various generations of men. In his own travels, there was no want of true philosophers here, there, and everywhere. But they were alone; they kept their science to themselves; and they fixed upon the inquirer a stony gaze, which petrified his heart. Pretenders, on the contrary, were as open as day--there was no end to their civilities: but their favours were expensive; they cost altogether, including his travelling expenses, about 13,000 crowns; and he was at length obliged to sell an estate which had produced him the agreeable little revenue of 8000 German florins.