“All is over,” said Henry; “let us now leave this place; and all I can now ask of you, my friends, is to lock this dreadful secret deep in your own hearts.” “It shall never pass my lips,” said Marchdale. “Nor mine, you may depend,” said the doctor. “I was much in hopes that this night’s work would have had the effect of dissipating, instead of adding to, the gloomy fancies that now possess you.” “Good heavens!” cried George, “can you call them fancies, Mr. Chillingworth?” “I do, indeed.” “Have you yet a doubt?” “My young friend, I told you from the first, that I would not believe in your vampyre; and I tell you now, that if one was to come and lay hold of me by the throat, as long as I could at all gasp for breath I would tell him he was a d——d impostor.” “This is carrying incredulity to the verge of obstinacy.” “Far beyond it, if you please.” “You will not be convinced?” said Marchdale. “I most decidedly, on this point, will not.” “Then you are one who would doubt a miracle, if you saw it with your own eyes.” “I would, because I do not believe in miracles. I should endeavour to find some rational and some scientific means of accounting for the phenomenon, and that’s the very reason why we have no miracles now-a-days, between you and I, and no prophets and saints, and all that sort of thing.” “I would rather avoid such observations in such a place as this,” said Marchdale. “Nay, do not be the moral coward,” cried Mr. Chillingworth, “to make your opinions, or the expression of them, dependent upon any certain locality.” “I know not what to think,” said Henry; “I am bewildered quite. Let us now come away.” Mr. Marchdale replaced the lid of the coffin, and then the little party moved towards the staircase. Henry turned before he ascended, and glanced back into the vault. “Oh,” he said, “if I could but think there had been some mistake, some error of judgment, on which the mind could rest for hope.” “I deeply regret,” said Marchdale, “that I so strenuously advised this expedition. I did hope that from it would have resulted much good.” “And you had every reason so to hope,” said Chillingworth. “I advised it likewise, and I tell you that its result perfectly astonishes me, although I will not allow myself to embrace at once all the conclusions to which it would seem to lead me.” “I am satisfied,” said Henry; “I know you both advised me for the best. The curse of Heaven seems now to have fallen upon me and my house.” “Oh, nonsense!” said Chillingworth. “What for?” “Alas! I know not.” “Then you may depend that Heaven would never act so oddly. In the first place, Heaven don’t curse anybody; and, in the second, it is too just to inflict pain where pain is not amply deserved.”