were
despicable in his eyes. His great debauch had been in some sort a
deplorable farewell to his life as a man. The earth had grown too
narrow for him, for the infernal gifts laid bare for him the secrets of
creation--he saw the cause and foresaw its end. He was shut out from
all that men call "heaven" in all languages under the sun; he could no
longer think of heaven.

Then he came to understand the look on his predecessor's face and the
drying up of the life within; then he knew all that was meant by the
baffled hope that gleamed in Melmoth's eyes; he, too, knew the thirst
that burned those red lips, and the agony of a continual struggle
between two natures grown to giant size. Even yet he might be an angel,
and he knew himself to be a fiend. His was the fate of a sweet and
gentle creature that a wizard's malice has imprisoned in a mis-shapen
form, entrapping it by a pact, so that another's will must set it free
from its detested envelope.

As a deception only increases the ardor with which a man of really
great nature explores the infinite of sentiment in a woman's heart, so
Castanier awoke to find that one idea lay like a weight upon his soul,
an idea which was perhaps the key to loftier spheres. The very fact that
he had bartered away his eternal happiness led him to dwell in thought
upon the future of those who pray and believe. On the morrow of his
debauch, when he entered into the sober possession of his power, this
idea made him feel himself a prisoner; he knew the burden of the woe
that poets, and prophets, and great oracles of faith have set forth for
us in such mighty words; he felt the point of the Flaming Sword plunged
into his side, and hurried in search of Melmoth. What had become of his
predecessor?

The Englishman was living in a mansion in the Rue Ferou, near
Saint-Sulpice--a gloomy, dark, damp, and cold abode. The Rue Ferou
itself is one of the most dismal streets in Paris; it has a north aspect
like all the streets that lie at right angles to the left bank of the
Seine, and the houses are in keeping with the site. As Castanier stood
on the threshold he found that the door itself, like the vaulted roof,
was hung with black; rows of lighted tapers shone brilliantly as though
some king were lying in state; and a priest stood on either side of a
catafalque that had been raised there.

"There is no need to ask why you have come, sir," the old hall porter
said to Castanier; "you are so like our poo