of
a full moon falling on the body."

"Yes, yes, I have heard as much."

"And that the hideous repast of blood has to be taken very frequently,
and that if the vampyre gets it not he wastes away, presenting the
appearance of one in the last stage of a consumption, and visibly, so to
speak, dying."

"That is what I have understood."

"To-night, do you know, Mr. Bannerworth, is the full of the moon."

Henry started.

"If now you had succeeded in killing--. Pshaw, what am I saying. I
believe I am getting foolish, and that the horrible superstition is
beginning to fasten itself upon me as well as upon all of you. How
strangely the fancy will wage war with the judgment in such a way as
this."

"The full of the moon," repeated Henry, as he glanced towards the
window, "and the night is near at hand."

"Banish these thoughts from your mind," said the doctor, "or else, my
young friend, you will make yourself decidedly ill. Good evening to you,
for it is evening. I shall see you to-morrow morning."

Mr. Chillingworth appeared now to be anxious to go, and Henry no longer
opposed his departure; but when he was gone a sense of great loneliness
came over him.

"To-night," he repeated, "is the full of the moon. How strange that this
dreadful adventure should have taken place just the night before. 'Tis
very strange. Let me see--let me see."

He took from the shelves of a book case the work which Flora had
mentioned, entitled, "Travels in Norway," in which work he found some
account of the popular belief in vampyres.

He opened the work at random, and then some of the leaves turned over of
themselves to a particular place, as the leaves of a book will
frequently do when it has been kept open a length of time at that part,
and the binding stretched there more than anywhere else. There was a
note at the bottom of one of the pages at this part of the book, and
Henry read as follows:--

"With regard to these vampyres, it is believed by those who are inclined
to give credence to so dreadful a superstition, that they always
endeavour to make their feast of blood, for the revival of their bodily
powers, on some evening immediately preceding a full moon, because if
any accident befal them, such as being shot, or otherwise killed or
wounded, they can recover by lying down somewhere where the full moon's
rays will fall upon them."

Henry let the book drop from his hands with a groan and a shudder.

CHAPTER V.

THE NI