“Hush! for God’s sake, hush! you are getting into a dreadful state of excitement, Charles; hush! hush!”

“And can you blame—­”

“No, no; but what can we do?”

“You are right.  Nothing can we do at present.  We have a clue now, and be it our mutual inclination, as well as duty, to follow it.  Oh, you shall see how calm I will be!”

“For Heaven’s sake, be so.  I have noted that his eyes flash upon yours with no friendly feeling.”

“His friendship were a curse.”

“Hush! he drinks!”

“Watch him.”

“I will.”

“Gentlemen all,” said Sir Francis Varney, in such soft, dulcet tones, that it was quite a fascination to hear him speak; “gentlemen all, being as I am, much delighted with your company, do not accuse me of presumption, if I drink now, poor drinker as I am, to our future merry meetings.”

He raised the wine to his lips, and seemed to drink, after which he replaced the glass upon the table.

Charles glanced at it, it was still full.

“You have not drank, Sir Francis Varney,” he said.

“Pardon me, enthusiastic young sir,” said Varney, “perhaps you will have the liberality to allow me to take my wine how I please and when I please.”

“Your glass is full.”

“Well, sir?”

“Will you drink it?”

“Not at any man’s bidding, most certainly.  If the fair Flora Bannerworth would grace the board with her sweet presence, methinks I could then drink on, on, on.”

“Hark you, sir,” cried Charles, “I can bear no more of this.  We have had in this house most horrible and damning evidence that there are such things as vampyres.”

“Have you really?  I suppose you eat raw pork at supper, and so had the nightmare?”

“A jest is welcome in its place, but pray hear me out, sir, if it suit your lofty courtesy to do so.”

“Oh, certainly.”

“Then I say we believe, as far as human judgment has a right to go, that a vampyre has been here.”

“Go on, it’s interesting.  I always was a lover of the wild and the wonderful.”

“We have, too,” continued Charles, “some reason to believe that you are the man.”

Varney tapped his forehead as he glanced at Henry, and said,—­

“Oh, dear, I did not know.  You should have told me he was a little wrong about the brain; I might have quarreled with the lad.  Dear me, how lamentable for his poor mother.”

“This will not do, Sir Francis Varney alias Bannerworth.”

“Oh—­oh!  Be calm—­be calm.”

“I defy you to your teeth, sir!  No, God, no!  Your teeth!”

“Poor lad!  Poor lad!”

“You are a cowardly demon, and here I swear to devote myself to your destruction.”

Sir Francis Varney drew himself up to his full height, and that was immense, as he said to Henry,—­

“I pray you, Mr. Bannerworth, since I am thus grievously insulted beneath your roof, to tell me if your friend here be mad or sane?”