ou are as welcome here as if the house were your own, and all
that it contains."

"I believe so, most truly. You have no objection, I presume, to my
conversing with Flora upon this strange subject?"

"Certainly not. Of course you will be careful to say nothing which can
add to her fears."

"I shall be most guarded, believe me. You say that your brother George,
Mr. Chillingworth, yourself, and this Mr. Marchdale, have all been
cognisant of the circumstances."

"Yes--yes."

"Then with the whole of them you permit me to hold free communication
upon the subject?"

"Most certainly."

"I will do so then. Keep up good heart, Henry, and this affair, which
looks so full of terror at first sight, may yet be divested of some of
its hideous aspect."

"I am rejoiced, if anything can rejoice me now," said Henry, "to see you
view the subject with so much philosophy."

"Why," said Charles, "you made a remark of your own, which enabled me,
viewing the matter in its very worst and most hideous aspect, to gather
hope."

"What was that?"

"You said, properly and naturally enough, that if ever we felt that
there was such a weight of evidence in favour of a belief in the
existence of vampyres that we are compelled to succumb to it, we might
as well receive all the popular feelings and superstitions concerning
them likewise."

"I did. Where is the mind to pause, when once we open it to the
reception of such things?"

"Well, then, if that be the case, we will watch this vampyre and catch
it."

"Catch it?"

"Yes; surely it can be caught; as I understand, this species of being is
not like an apparition, that may be composed of thin air, and utterly
impalpable to the human touch, but it consists of a revivified corpse."

"Yes, yes."

"Then it is tangible and destructible. By Heaven! if ever I catch a
glimpse of any such thing, it shall drag me to its home, be that where
it may, or I will make it prisoner."

"Oh, Charles! you know not the feeling of horror that will come across
you when you do. You have no idea of how the warm blood will seem to
curdle in your veins, and how you will be paralysed in every limb."

"Did you feel so?"

"I did."

"I will endeavour to make head against such feelings. The love of Flora
shall enable me to vanquish them. Think you it will come again
to-morrow?"

[Illustration]

"I can have no thought the one way or the other."

"It may. We must arrange among us all, Henry, some plan of