Of all their horrible dialogue, only these words were legible in the manuscript, “You know me now.”--“I always knew you.”--“That is false; you imagined you did, and that has been the cause of all the wild * * * * * * * * * of the * * * * * of your finally being lodged in this mansion of misery, where only I would seek, where only I can succour you.” “You, demon!”--“Demon!--Harsh words!--Was it a demon or a human being placed you here?--Listen to me, Stanton; nay, wrap not yourself in that miserable blanket,--that cannot shut out my words. Believe me, were you folded in thunder-clouds, you must hear _me_! Stanton, think of your misery. These bare walls--what do they present to the intellect or to the senses?--White-wash, diversified with the scrawls of charcoal or red chalk, that your happy predecessors have left for you to trace over. You have a taste for drawing,--I trust it will improve. And here’s a grating, through which the sun squints on you like a step-dame, and the breeze blows, as if it meant to tantalize you with a sigh from that sweet mouth, whose kiss you must never enjoy. And where’s your library,--intellectual man,--travelled man?” he repeated in a tone of bitter derision; “where be your companions, your peaked men of countries, as your favourite Shakespeare has it? You must be content with the spider and the rat, to crawl and scratch round your flock-bed! I have known prisoners in the Bastile to feed them for companions,--why don’t you begin your task? I have known a spider to descend at the tap of a finger, and a rat to come forth when the daily meal was brought, to share it with his fellow-prisoner!--How delightful to have vermin for your guests! Aye, and when the feast fails them, they make a meal of their entertainer!--You shudder--Are you, then, the first prisoner who has been devoured alive by the vermin that infested his cell?--Delightful banquet, not “where you eat, but where you are eaten!” Your guests, however, will give you one token of repentance while they feed; there will be _gnashing of teeth_, and you shall hear it, and feel it too perchance!--And then for meals--Oh you are daintily off!--The soup that the cat has lapped; and (as her progeny has probably contributed to the hell-broth) why not?---- Then your hours of solitude, deliciously diversified by the yell of famine, the howl of madness, the crash of whips, and the broken-hearted sob of those who, like you, are supposed, or _driven_ mad by the crimes of others!--Stanton, do you imagine your reason can possibly hold out amid such scenes?--Supposing your reason was unimpaired, your health not destroyed,--suppose all this, which is, after all, more than fair supposition can grant, guess the effect of the continuance of these scenes on your senses alone. A time will come, and soon, when, from mere habit, you will echo the scream of every delirious wretch that harbours near you; then you will