rs, but still to
their advantage, inasmuch as I am doing what no one else would do,
namely, paying away to within the scantiest pittance the whole proceeds
of the estate that spreads around me."

"Heed nothing but an escape from such horrors as seem to be accumulating
now around you."

"If I were sure that such a removal would bring with it such a
corresponding advantage, I might, indeed, be induced to risk all to
accomplish it."

"As regards poor dear Flora," said Mr. Marchdale, "I know not what to
say, or what to think; she has been attacked by a vampyre, and after
this mortal life shall have ended, it is dreadful to think there may be
a possibility that she, with all her beauty, all her excellence and
purity of mind, and all those virtues and qualities which should make
her the beloved of all, and which do, indeed, attach all hearts towards
her, should become one of that dreadful tribe of beings who cling to
existence by feeding, in the most dreadful manner, upon the life blood
of others--oh, it is too dreadful to contemplate! Too horrible--too
horrible!"

"Then wherefore speak of it?" said Charles, with some asperity. "Now, by
the great God of Heaven, who sees all our hearts, I will not give in to
such a horrible doctrine! I will not believe it; and were death itself
my portion for my want of faith, I would this moment die in my disbelief
of anything so truly fearful!"

"Oh, my young friend," added Marchdale, "if anything could add to the
pangs which all who love, and admire, and respect Flora Bannerworth must
feel at the unhappy condition in which she is placed, it would be the
noble nature of you, who, under happier auspices, would have been her
guide through life, and the happy partner of her destiny."

"As I will be still."

"May Heaven forbid it! We are now among ourselves, and can talk freely
upon such a subject. Mr. Charles Holland, if you wed, you would look
forward to being blessed with children--those sweet ties which bind the
sternest hearts to life with so exquisite a bondage. Oh, fancy, then,
for a moment, the mother of your babes coming at the still hour of
midnight to drain from their veins the very life blood she gave to them.
To drive you and them mad with the expected horror of such
visitations--to make your nights hideous--your days but so many hours of
melancholy retrospection. Oh, you know not the world of terror, on the
awful brink of which you stand, when you talk of making Flora
Ban