“Then I must seek him myself. None will search for him as I will search; I must myself seek him. ’Tis true affection that can alone be successful in such a search.” “Believe me, dear Flora, that all has been done which the shortness of the time that has elapsed would permit. Further measures will now immediately be taken. Rest assured, dear sister, that all will be done that the utmost zeal can suggest.” “They have killed him! they have killed him!” she said, mournfully. “Oh, God, they have killed him! I am not now mad, but the time will come when I must surely be maddened. The vampyre has killed Charles Holland—the dreadful vampyre!” “Nay, now, Flora, this is frenzy.” “Because he loved me has he been destroyed. I know it, I know it. The vampyre has doomed me to destruction. I am lost, and all who loved me will be involved in one common ruin on my account. Leave me all of you to perish. If, for iniquities done in our family, some one must suffer to appease the divine vengeance, let that one be me, and only me.” “Hush, sister, hush!” cried Henry. “I expected not this from you. The expressions you use are not your expressions. I know you better. There is abundance of divine mercy, but no divine vengeance. Be calm, I pray you.” “Calm! calm!” “Yes. Make an exertion of that intellect we all know you to possess. It is too common a thing with human nature, when misfortune overtakes it, to imagine that such a state of things is specially arranged. We quarrel with Providence because it does not interfere with some special miracle in our favour; forgetting that, being denizens of this earth, and members of a great social system, we must be subject occasionally to the accidents which will disturb its efficient working.” “Oh, brother, brother!” she exclaimed, as she dropped into a seat, “you have never loved.” “Indeed!” “No; you have never felt what it was to hold your being upon the breath of another. You can reason calmly, because you cannot know the extent of feeling you are vainly endeavouring to combat.” “Flora, you do me less than justice. All I wish to impress upon your mind is, that you are not in any way picked out by Providence to be specially unhappy—that there is no perversion of nature on your account.” “Call you that hideous vampyre form that haunts me no perversion of ordinary nature?” “What is is natural,” said Marchdale. “Cold reasoning to one who suffers as I suffer. I cannot argue with you; I can only know that I am most unhappy—most miserable.” “But that will pass away, sister, and the sun of your happiness may smile again.” “Oh, if I could but hope!” “And wherefore should you deprive yourself of that poorest privilege of the most unhappy?” “Because my heart tells me to despair.” “Tell it you won’t, then,” cried Admiral Bell. “If you had been at sea as long as I have, Miss Bannerworth, you would never despair of anything at all.” “Providence guarded you,” said Marchdale.