At length, by means of his enchantments, he discovered that the man whom he had trusted had been robbing him for many years: all the time he had been searching for the philosopher’s stone, the gold already his had been tumbling into the bags of his steward. But what enraged him far more was, that the fellow had constantly pretended difficulty in providing the means necessary for the prosecution of his idolized studies: even if the feudal lord could have accepted the loss and forgiven the crime, here was a mockery which the man of science could not pardon. He summoned his steward to his presence, and accused him of his dishonesty. The man denied it energetically, but a few mysterious waftures of the hand of his lord, set him trembling, and after a few more, his lips, moving by a secret compulsion, and finding no power in their owner to check their utterance, confessed all the truth, whereupon his master ordered him to go and bring his accounts. He departed all but bereft of his senses, and staggered home as if in a dream. There he begged his daughter to go and plead for him with his lord, hoping she might be able to move him to mercy; for she was a lovely girl, and supposed by the neighbours, judging from what they considered her foolhardiness, to have received from him tokens of something at least less than aversion. She obeyed, and from that hour disappeared. The people of the house averred afterwards that the next day, and for days following, they heard, at intervals, moans and cries from the wizard’s chamber, or some where in its neighbourhood--certainly not from the laboratory; but as they had seen no one visit their master, they had paid them little attention, classing them with the other and hellish noises they were but too much accustomed to hear.