Stanton listened, and shuddered . .

. . . . .

“Escape—­escape for your life,” cried the tempter; “break forth into life, liberty, and sanity.  Your social happiness, your intellectual powers, your immortal interests, perhaps, depend on the choice of this moment.—­There is the door, and the key is in my hand.—­Choose—­choose!”—­“And how comes the key in your hand? and what is the condition of my liberation?” said Stanton.

. . . . .

The explanation occupied several pages, which, to the torture of young Melmoth, were wholly illegible.  It seemed, however, to have been rejected by Stanton with the utmost rage and horror, for Melmoth at last made out,—­“Begone, monster, demon!—­begone to your native place.  Even this mansion of horror trembles to contain you; its walls sweat, and its floors quiver, while you tread them.”

. . . . .

The conclusion of this extraordinary manuscript was in such a state, that, in fifteen moldy and crumbling pages, Melmoth could hardly make out that number of lines.  No antiquarian, unfolding with trembling hand the calcined leaves of an Herculaneum manuscript, and hoping to discover some lost lines of the Aeneis in Virgil’s own autograph, or at least some unutterable abomination of Petronius or Martial, happily elucidatory of the mysteries of the Spintriae, or the orgies of the Phallic worshipers, ever pored with more luckless diligence, or shook a head of more hopeless despondency over his task.  He could but just make out what tended rather to excite than assuage that feverish thirst of curiosity which was consuming his inmost soul.  The manuscript told no more of Melmoth, but mentioned that Stanton was finally liberated from his confinement,—­that his pursuit of Melmoth was incessant and indefatigable,—­that he himself allowed it to be a species of insanity,—­that while he acknowledged it to be the master passion, he also felt it the master torment of his life.  He again visited the Continent, returned to England,—­pursued, inquired, traced, bribed, but in vain.  The being whom he had met thrice, under circumstances so extraordinary, he was fated never to encounter again in his lifetime.  At length, discovering that he had been born in Ireland, he resolved to go there,—­went, and found his pursuit again fruitless, and his inquiries unanswered.  The family knew nothing of him, or at least what they knew or imagined, they prudently refused to disclose to a stranger, and Stanton departed unsatisfied.  It is remarkable, that he too, as appeared from many half-obliterated pages of the manuscript, never disclosed to mortal the particulars of their conversation in the madhouse; and the slightest allusion to it threw him into fits of rage and gloom equally singular and alarming.  He left the manuscript, however, in the hands of the family, possibly deeming,