A degree of solemnity, mixed with concealed fierceness, toned his voice as he spoke; yet was he fixed in the attitude in which first he had addressed Wolfstein. The pale ray of the moon fell upon his dark features, and his coruscating eye fixed on his trembling victim’s countenance, flashed with almost intolerable brilliancy. A chill horror darted through Wolfstein’s sickening frame; his brain swam around wildly, and most appalling presentiments of what was about to happen, pressed upon his agonized intellect. “Yes, yes, I have promised, and I will perform the covenant I have entered into,” said Wolfstein; “I swear to you that I will!” and as he spoke, a kind of mechanical and inspired feeling steeled his soul to fortitude; it seemed to arise independently of himself; nor could he, though he eagerly desired to do so, control in the least his _own_ resolves. Such an impulse as this had first induced him to promise at all. Ah! how often in Ginotti’s absence had he resisted it! but when the mysterious disposer of the events of his existence was before him, a consciousness of the inutility of his refusal compelled him to submit to the mandates of a being, whom his heart sickening to acknowledge, it unwillingly confessed as a superior. “Come,” continued Ginotti; “the hour is late, I must dispatch.” Unresisting, yet speaking not, Wolfstein conducted Ginotti to an apartment. “Bring wine, and light a fire,” said he to his servant, who quickly obeyed him. Wolfstein swallowed an overflowing goblet, hoping thereby to acquire courage; for he found that, with every moment of Ginotti’s stay, the visionary and awful terrors of his mind augmented. “Do you not drink?” “No,” replied Ginotti, sullenly. A pause ensued; during which the eyes of Ginotti, glaring with demoniacal scintillations, spoke tenfold terrors to the soul of Wolfstein. He knitted his brows, and bit his lips, in vain attempting to appear unembarrassed. “Wolfstein!” at last said Ginotti, breaking the fearful silence; “Wolfstein!” The colour fled from the cheek of his victim, as thus Ginotti spoke: he moved his posture, and awaited, in anxious and horrible solicitude, the declaration which was, as he supposed, to ensue. “My name, my family, and the circumstances which have attended my career through existence, it neither boots you to know, nor me to declare.” “Does it not?” said Wolfstein, scarcely knowing what to say; yet convinced, from the pause, that something was expected. “No! nor canst thou, nor any other existent being, even attempt to dive into the mysteries which envelope me. Let it be sufficient for you to know, that every event in your life has not only been known to me, but has occurred under my particular machinations.” Wolfstein started. The terror which had blanched his cheek now gave way to an expression of fierceness and surprise; he was about to speak, but Ginotti, noticing not his motion, thus continued: