“It is well. I’m able now thus calmly to reason with you. A few short months more and I shall feel the languor of death creeping over me, and then will come that mad excitement of the brain, which, were you hidden behind triple doors of steel, would tempt me again to seek your chamber—again to seize you in my full embrace—again to draw from your veins the means of prolonged life—again to convulse your very soul with terror.” “I need no incentives,” said Flora, with a shudder, “in the shape of descriptions of the past, to urge me on.” “You will fly from Bannerworth Hall?” “Yes, yes!” said Flora, “it shall be so; its very chambers now are hideous with the recollection of scenes enacted in them. I will urge my brothers, my mother, all to leave, and in some distant clime we will find security and shelter. There even we will learn to think of you with more of sorrow than of anger—more pity than reproach—more curiosity than loathing.” “Be it so,” said the vampyre; and he clasped his hands, as if with a thankfulness that he had done so much towards restoring peace at least to one, who, in consequence of his acts, had felt such exquisite despair. “Be it so; and even I will hope that the feelings which have induced so desolated and so isolated a being as myself to endeavour to bring peace to one human heart, will plead for me, trumpet-tongued, to Heaven!” “It will—it will,” said Flora. “Do you think so?” “I do; and I will pray that the thought may turn to certainty in such a cause.” The vampyre appeared to be much affected; and then he added,— “Flora, you know that this spot has been the scene of a catastrophe fearful to look back upon, in the annals of your family?” “It has,” said Flora. “I know to what you allude; ’tis a matter of common knowledge to all—a sad theme to me, and one I would not court.” “Nor would I oppress you with it. Your father, here, on this very spot, committed that desperate act which brought him uncalled for to the judgment seat of God. I have a strange, wild curiosity upon such subjects. Will you, in return for the good that I have tried to do you, gratify it?” “I know not what you mean,” said Flora. “To be more explicit, then, do you remember the day on which your father breathed his last?” “Too well—too well.” “Did you see him or converse with him shortly before that desperate act was committed?” “No; he shut himself up for some time in a solitary chamber.” “Ha! what chamber?” “The one in which I slept myself on the night——” “Yes, yes; the one with the portrait—that speaking portrait—the eyes of which seem to challenge an intruder as he enters the apartment.” “The same.” “For hours shut up there!” added Varney, musingly; “and from thence he wandered to the garden, where, in this summer-house, he breathed his last?” “It was so.” “Then, Flora, ere I bid you adieu——”