rate deed I should have
stopped short at then, in the height of my distress, but I neither
contemplated taking that man's life, nor did I strike the blow which
sent him from existence."

"There is even some excuse as regards the higher crime for Marmaduke
Bannerworth."

"Think you so?"

"Yes; he thought that you were killed, and impulsively he might have
struck the blow that made him a murderer."

"Be it so. I am willing, extremely willing that anything should occur
that should remove the odium of guilt from any man, Be it so, I say,
with all my heart; but now, Charles Holland, I feel that we must meet
again ere I can tell you all; but in the meantime let Flora Bannerworth
rest in peace--she need dread nothing from me. Avarice and revenge, the
two passions which found a home in my heart, are now stifled for ever."

"Revenge! did you say revenge?"

"I did; whence the marvel, am I not sufficiently human for that?"

"But you coupled it with the name of Flora Bannerworth."

"I did, and that is part of my mystery."

"A mystery, indeed, to imagine that such a being as Flora could awaken
any such feeling in your heart--a most abundant mystery."

"It is so. I do not affect to deny it: but yet it is true, although so
greatly mysterious, but tell her that although at one time I looked upon
her as one whom I cared not if I injured, her beauty and distress
changed the current of my thoughts, and won upon me greatly, From the
moment I found I had the power to become the bane of her existence, I
ceased to wish to be so, and never again shall she experience a pang of
alarm from Varney, the vampyre."

"Your message shall be faithfully delivered, and doubt not that it will
be received with grateful feelings. Nevertheless I should have much
wished to have been in a position to inform her of more particulars."

"Come to me here at midnight to-morrow, and you shall know all. I will
have no reservation with you, no concealments; you shall know whom I
have had to battle against, and how it is that a world of evil passions
took possession of my heart and made me what I am."

"Are you firm in this determination, Varney--will you indeed tell me no
more to-night?"

"No more, I have said it. Leave me now. I have need of more repose, for
of late sleep has seldom closed my eyelids."

Charles Holland was convinced, from the positive manner in which he
spoke, that nothing more in the shape of information, at that time, was
to be ex