There was no
other access to it, and the place had never been used, nor had any
window but one which they had constructed in the roof so cunningly
as to attract no notice. All the household supposed the hidden
chamber, whose existence was unquestioned, to be in the great tower,
somewhere near the workshop.
In this place he kept his books of alchemy and magic, and some of
his stranger instruments. It would have been hard for himself even
to say what he did or did not believe of such things. In certain
moods, especially when under the influence of some fact he had just
discovered without being able to account for it, he was ready to
believe everything; in others, especially when he had just
succeeded, right or wrong, in explaining anything to his own
satisfaction, he doubted them all considerably. His imagination
leaned lovingly towards them; his intellect required proofs which he
had not yet found.
Hither then he had retired--to work out the sequences of the
horoscopes he had that night constructed.
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