's sake, Henry, compose yourself."

"Is your friend often thus?" said Sir Francis Varney, with the same
mellifluous tone which seemed habitual to him.

"No, sir, he is not; but recent circumstances have shattered his nerves;
and, to tell the truth, you bear so strong a resemblance to an old
portrait, in his house, that I do not wonder so much as I otherwise
should at his agitation."

"Indeed."

"A resemblance!" said Henry; "a resemblance! God of Heaven! it is the
face itself."

"You much surprise me," said Sir Francis.

[Illustration]

Henry sunk into the chair which was near him, and he trembled violently.
The rush of painful thoughts and conjectures that came through his mind
was enough to make any one tremble. "Is this the vampyre?" was the
horrible question that seemed impressed upon his very brain, in letters
of flame. "Is this the vampyre?"

"Are you better, sir?" said Sir Francis Varney, in his bland, musical
voice. "Shall I order any refreshment for you?"

"No--no," gasped Henry; "for the love of truth tell me! Is--is your name
really Varney!"

"Sir?"

"Have you no other name to which, perhaps, a better title you could
urge?"

"Mr. Bannerworth, I can assure you that I am too proud of the name of
the family to which I belong to exchange it for any other, be it what it
may."

"How wonderfully like!"

"I grieve to see you so much distressed. Mr. Bannerworth. I presume ill
health has thus shattered your nerves?"

"No; ill health has not done the work. I know not what to say, Sir
Francis Varney, to you; but recent events in my family have made the
sight of you full of horrible conjectures."

"What mean you, sir?"

"You know, from common report, that we have had a fearful visitor at our
house."

"A vampyre, I have heard," said Sir Francis Varney, with a bland, and
almost beautiful smile, which displayed his white glistening teeth to
perfection.

"Yes; a vampyre, and--and--"

"I pray you go on, sir; you surely are far above the vulgar superstition
of believing in such matters?"

"My judgment is assailed in too many ways and shapes for it to hold out
probably as it ought to do against so hideous a belief, but never was it
so much bewildered as now."

"Why so?"

"Because--"

"Nay, Henry," whispered Mr. Marchdale, "it is scarcely civil to tell Sir
Francis to his face, that he resembles a vampyre."

"I must, I must."

"Pray, sir," interrupted Varney to Marchdale, "permit Mr. Bannerwor