ned by a stranger
with an awful eye, who insists on becoming his fellow traveller,
and on telling, in defiance of protests, yet another story. The
prologue to the Lover's Tale is almost Chaucerian in its humour:

"It was with the utmost effort of his mixed politeness
and fear that he prepared himself to listen to the
tale, which the stranger had frequently amid their
miscellaneous conversation, alluded to, and showed an
evident anxiety to relate. These allusions were
attended with unpleasant reminiscences to the
hearer--but he saw that it was to be, and armed himself
as best he might with courage to hear. 'I would not
intrude on you, Senhor,' says the stranger, 'with a
narrative in which you can feel but little interest,
were I not conscious that its narration may operate as
a warning, the most awful, salutary and efficacious to
yourself.'"

At this veiled hint Don Francisco discharges a volley of oaths,
but he is silenced completely by the smile of the stranger--"that
spoke bitterer and darker things than the fiercest frown that
ever wrinkled the features of man." After this he cannot choose
but hear, and the stranger seizes his opportunity to begin an
uncommonly dull story, connected with a Shropshire family and
intermingled with historical events. In this tale the Wanderer
appears to a girl whose lover has lost his reason, and offers to
restore him if she will accept his conditions. Once more the
tempter is foiled. The story meanders so sluggishly that our
sympathies are with Don Francisco, and we cannot help wishing
that he had adopted more drastic measures to quieten the
insistent stranger. At the conclusion Francisco mutters
indignantly:

"It is inconceivable to me how this person forces
himself on my company, harasses me with tales that have
no more application to me than the legend of the Cid,
and may be as apocryphal as the ballad of
Roncesvalles--"

but yet the stranger has not finished. He proceeds to tell him a
tale in which he will feel a peculiar interest, that of Isidora,
his own daughter, and finally urges him to hasten to her rescue.
Don Francisco wanders by easy stages to Madrid, and, on his
arrival, marries Isidora against her will to Montilla. Melmoth,
according to promise, appears at the wedding. The bridegroom is
slain. Isidora, with Melmoth's child, ends her days in the
dungeons of the Inquisition,