will rather draw back in a pursuit,
more than one would induce them to urge each other on.

In fact, one in such a case could act the part of a spy--a secret
observer; and in that case can catch people at times when they could not
under any other circumstances be caught or observed at all.

"I will go," he muttered; "and should I be compelled to run away again,
why, nobody knows anything about it and nobody will laugh at me."

This was all very well; but Mr. Chillingworth was not the man to run
away without sufficient cause. But there was so much mystery in all this
that he felt much interested in the issue of the affair. But this issue
he could not command; at the same time he was determined to sit and
watch, and thus become certain that either something or nothing was to
take place.

Even the knowledge of that much--that some inexplicable action was still
going on--was far preferable to the uncertainty of not knowing whether
what had once been going on was still so or not, because, if it had
ceased, it was probable that nothing more would ever be known concerning
it, and the mystery would still be a mystery to the end of time.

"It shall be fathomed if there be any possibility of its being
discovered," muttered Chillingworth. "Who would have thought that so
quiet and orderly a spot as this, our quiet village, would have suffered
so much commotion and disturbance? Far from every cause of noise and
strife, it is quite as great a matter of mystery as the vampyre business
itself.

"I have been so mixed up in this business that I must go through with
it. By the way, of the mysteries, the greatest that I have met with is
the fact of the vampyre having anything to do with so quiet a family as
the Bannerworths."

Mr. Chillingworth pondered over the thought; but yet he could make
nothing of it. It in no way tended to elucidate anything connected with
the affair, and it was much too strange and singular in all its parts to
be submitted to any process of thought, with any hope of coming to
anything like a conclusion upon the subject--that must remain until some
facts were ascertained, and to obtain them Mr. Chillingworth now
determined to try.

This was precisely what was most desirable in the present state of
affairs; while things remained in the present state of uncertainty,
there would be much more of mystery than could ever be brought to light.

One or two circumstances cleared up, the minor ones would follow in th