miss--we only want Varney, the vampyre."

"And can you find him nowhere but in a female's bedroom? Shame on you!
shame on you! Have you no sisters, wives, or mothers, that you act
thus?"

"He's not there, you may be sure of that, Jack," said a gruff voice.
"Let the lady be in quiet; she's had quite enough trouble with him to
sicken her of a vampyre. You may be sure that's the last place to find
him in."

With this they all turned away, and Flora shut the door and locked it
upon them, and Varney was safe.

"You have saved me," said Varney.

"Hush!" said Flora. "Speak not; there maybe some one listening."

Sir Francis Varney stood in the attitude of one listening most anxiously
to catch some sounds; the moon fell across his face, and gave it a
ghastly hue, that, added to his natural paleness and wounds, gave him an
almost unearthly aspect.

The sounds grew more and more distant; the shouts and noise of men
traversing the apartments subsided, and gradually the place became
restored to its original silence. The mob, after having searched every
other part of the house, and not finding the object of their search,
they concluded that he was not there, but must have made his escape
before.

* * * * *

This most desperate peril of Sir Francis Varney seemed to have more
effect upon him than anything that had occurred during his most strange
and most eventful career.

When he was assured that the riotous mob that had been so intent upon
his destruction was gone, and that he might emerge from his place of
concealment, he did so with an appearance of such utter exhaustion that
the Bannerworth family could not but look upon him as a being who was
near his end.

At any time his countenance, as we long have had occasion to remark, was
a strange and unearthly looking one; but when we come to superadd to the
strangeness of his ordinary appearance the traces of deep mental
emotion, we may well say that Varney's appearance was positively of the
most alarming character.

When he was seated in the ordinary sitting apartment of the
Bannerworths, he drew a long sighing breath, and placing his hand upon
his heart, he said, in a faint tone of voice,--

"It beats now laboriously, but it will soon cease its pulsations for
ever."

These words sounded absolutely prophetic, there was about them such a
solemn aspect, and he looked at the same time that he uttered them so
much like one whose mortal rac