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.