or, to accede
to any request which you may make to me."

"And I," said the admiral. "Be it so--be it so. For one week, you say?"

"Yes--for one week. I hope, by the end of that time, to have achieved
something worth the telling you of; and I promise you that, if I am at
all disappointed in my expectation, that I will frankly and freely
communicate to you all I know and all I suspect."

"Then that's a bargain."

"It is."

"And what's to be done at once?"

"Why, nothing, but to take the greatest possible care that Bannerworth
Hall is not left another hour without some one in it; and in order that
such should be the case, I have to request that you two will remain here
until I go to the town, and make preparations for taking quiet
possession of it myself, which I will do in the course of two hours, at
most."

"Don't be longer," said the admiral, for I am so desperately hungry,
that I shall certainly begin to eat somebody, if you are."

"Depend upon me."

"Very well," said Henry; "you may depend we will wait here until you
come back."

The doctor at once hurried from the garden, leaving Henry and the
admiral to amuse themselves as best they might, with conjectures as to
what he was really about, until his return.

CHAPTER LXII.

THE MYSTERIOUS MEETING IN THE RUIN AGAIN.--THE VAMPYRE'S ATTACK UPON THE
CONSTABLE.

[Illustration]

It is now necessary that we return once more to that mysterious ruin, in
the intricacies of which Varney, when pursued by the mob, had succeeded
in finding a refuge which defied all the exertions which were made for
his discovery. Our readers must be well aware, that, connected with that
ruin, are some secrets of great importance to our story; and we will
now, at the solemn hour of midnight, take another glance at what is
doing within its recesses.

At that solemn hour it is not probable that any one would seek that
gloomy place from choice. Some lover of the picturesque certainly might
visit it; but such was not the inciting cause of the pilgrimage with
those who were soon to stand within its gloomy precincts.

Other motives dictated their presence in that spot--motives of rapine;
peradventure of murder itself.

As the neighbouring clocks sounded the hour of twelve, and the faint
strokes were borne gently on the wind to that isolated ruin, there might
have been seen a tall man standing by the porch of what had once been a
large doorway to some portion of the ruin.