In the other stories the stranger has been a taciturn creature, relying on the lustre of his eyes rather than on his powers of eloquence to win over his victims.  To Immalee he pours forth floods of rhetoric on the sins and follies of mankind.  Had she not been one of Rousseau’s children of nature, and so innocent alike of a knowledge of Shakespeare and of the fault of impatience, she would surely have exclaimed:  “If thou hast news, I prithee deliver them like a man of this world.”  When Immalee is transported to Spain and reassumes her baptismal name of Isidora, Melmoth follows her and their conversations are continued at dead of night through the lattice.  Here they discourse on the real nature of love.  At length the gloomy lover persuades Isidora to marry him.  Their midnight nuptials take place against a weird background.  By a narrow, precipitous path they approach the ruined chapel, and are united by a hand “as cold as that of death.”  Meanwhile, Don Francisco, Isidora’s father, on his way home, spends the night at an inn, where a stranger insists on telling him “The Tale of Guzman.”  In this tale the tempter visits a father whose family is starving, but who resists the lure of wealth.  Maturin portrays with extraordinary power the deterioration in the character of an old man Walberg, through the effects of poverty.  At the close of the narration Don Francisco falls into a deep slumber, but is sternly awakened 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: