chair, he added,--

"'Mr. Chillingworth, I have sent for you in consequence of a slight
accident which has happened to my arm. I was incautiously loading some
fire-arms, and discharged a pistol so close to me that the bullet
inflicted a wound on my arm.'

"'If you will allow me," said I, 'to see the wound, I will give you my
opinion.'

"He then showed me a jagged wound, which had evidently been caused by
the passage of a bullet, which, had it gone a little deeper, must have
inflicted serious injury. As it was, the wound was but trifling.

"He had evidently been attempting to dress it himself, but finding some
considerable inflammation, he very likely got a little alarmed."

"You dressed the wound?"

"I did."

"And what do you think of Sir Francis Varney, now that you have had so
capital an opportunity," said Henry, "of a close examination of him?"

"Why, there is certainly something odd about him which I cannot well
define, but, take him altogether, he can be a very gentlemanly man
indeed."

"So he can."

"His manners are easy and polished; he has evidently mixed in good
society, and I never, in all my life, heard such a sweet, soft, winning
voice."

"That is strictly him. You noticed, I presume, his great likeness to the
portrait on the panel?"

"I did. At some moments, and viewing his face in some particular lights,
it showed much more strongly than at others. My impression was that he
could, when he liked, look much more like the portrait on the panel than
when he allowed his face to assume its ordinary appearance."

"Probably such an impression would be produced upon your mind," said
Charles, "by some accidental expression of the countenance which even he
was not aware of, and which often occurs in families."

"It may be so."

"Of course you did not hint, sir, at what has passed here with regard to
him?" said Henry.

"I did not. Being, you see, called in professionally, I had no right to
take advantage of that circumstance to make any remarks to him about his
private affairs."

"Certainly not."

"It was all one to me whether he was a vampyre or not, professionally,
and however deeply I might feel, personally, interested in the matter, I
said nothing to him about it, because, you see, if I had, he would have
had a fair opportunity of saying at once, 'Pray, sir, what is that to
you?' and I should have been at a loss what to reply."

"Can we doubt," said Henry, "but that this very wound has be