It was a glorious summer day, and outside the thick walls of the turret the sunlight was glancing, and the green trees waving in the wind; but he dared not go out to the free air and the smiling nature, for, if released from the occupation he had created for himself, because it demanded such incessant attention, the current of thought, undiverted from its natural course, would too surely ebb back upon his soul with its waters of exceeding bitterness; and therefore had many years of this old man's wretched life been spent as he was spending this present hour--bending over the glowing crucible, that he might avert the shock of the antagonistic properties which he had purposely combined, in order that his mind might be engaged in preventing the collision. None knew better than himself how profitless and miserable was this existence he had made, but except he fed, even with this food of ashes, the serpent thought that haunted him, it would have preyed on him to madness. Truly that dark fluid, beneath which his withered fingers were even now so busily turning the powerful flame, was an apt symbol of his own life--wasting away before the hidden fire which himself was goaded on to foster hour by hour. Absorbed as he seemed to be in his strange employment, he nevertheless heard with great acuteness the approach of some person, who knocked softly at the door and then opened it. Sir Michael turned round eagerly; the new comer was a servant, who said quickly, "My lady wishes to speak to you, Sir," and disappeared at once, as though the locality was one in which he by no means desired to find himself.