“You were in quest of me?”--“I was.” “Have you any thing to inquire of me?”--“Much.” “Speak, then.”--“This is no place.” “No place! poor wretch, I am independent of time and place. Speak, if you have any thing to ask or to learn?”--“I have many things to ask, but nothing to learn, I hope, from you.” “You deceive yourself, but you will be undeceived when next we meet.”--“And when shall that be?” said Stanton, grasping his arm; “name your hour and your place.” “The hour shall be mid-day,” answered the stranger, with a horrid and unintelligible smile; “and the place shall be the bare walls of a mad-house, where you shall rise rattling in your chains, and rustling from your straw, to greet me,--yet still you shall have _the curse of sanity_, and of memory. My voice shall ring in your ears till then, and the glance of these eyes shall be reflected from every object, animate or inanimate, till you behold them again.”--“Is it under circumstances so horrible we are to meet again?” said Stanton, shrinking under the full-lighted blaze of those demon eyes. “I never,” said the stranger, in an emphatic tone,--“I _never desert my friends in misfortune_. When they are plunged in the lowest abyss of human calamity, _they are sure to be visited by me_.” * * * * * The narrative, when Melmoth was again able to trace its continuation, described Stanton, some years after, plunged in a state the most deplorable. He had been always reckoned of a singular turn of mind, and the belief of this, aggravated by his constant talk of Melmoth, his wild pursuit of him, his strange behaviour at the theatre, and his dwelling on the various particulars of their extraordinary meetings, with all the intensity of the deepest conviction, (while he never could impress them on any one’s conviction but his own), suggested to some prudent people the idea that he was deranged. Their malignity probably took part with their prudence. The selfish Frenchman(9) says, we feel a pleasure even in the misfortunes of our friends,--_a plus forte_ in those of our enemies; and as every one is an enemy to a man of genius of course, the report of Stanton’s malady was propagated with infernal and successful industry. Stanton’s next relative, a needy unprincipled man, watched the report in its circulation, and saw the snares closing round his victim. He waited on him one morning, accompanied by a person of a grave, though somewhat repulsive appearance. Stanton was as usual abstracted and restless, and, after a few moments conversation, he proposed a drive a few miles out of London, which he said would revive and refresh him. Stanton objected, on account of the difficulty of getting a hackney coach, (for it is singular that at this period the number of private equipages, though infinitely fewer than they are now, exceeded the number of hired ones), and proposed going by water. This, however, did not suit the kinsman’s views; and, after pretending to send for a