He had drawn up his tall, gaunt frame to its full height, and crossed his arms upon his breast; there was a hideous smile upon his sallow countenance, and his voice was deep and sepulchral, as he said,—­

“Flora Bannerworth, hear that which I have to say, and hear it calmly.  You need have nothing to fear.  Make an alarm—­scream, or shout for help, and, by the hell beneath us, you are lost!”

There was a death-like, cold, passionless manner about the utterance of these words, as if they were spoken mechanically, and came from no human lips.

Flora heard them, and yet scarcely comprehended them; she stepped slowly back till she reached a chair, and there she held for support.  The only part of the address of Varney that thoroughly reached her ears, was that if she gave any alarm some dreadful consequences were to ensue.  But it was not on account of these words that she really gave no alarm; it was because she was utterly unable to do so.

“Answer me,” said Varney.  “Promise that you will hear that which I have to say.  In so promising you commit yourself to no evil, and you shall hear that which shall give you much peace.”

It was in vain she tried to speak; her lips moved, but she uttered no sound.

“You are terrified,” said Varney, “and yet I know not why.  I do not come to do you harm, although harm have you done me.  Girl, I come to rescue you from a thraldom of the soul under which you now labour.”

There was a pause of some moments’ duration, and then, faintly, Flora managed to say,—­

“Help! help!  Oh, help me, Heaven!”

Varney made a gesture of impatience, as he said,—­

“Heaven works no special matters now.  Flora Bannerworth, if you have as much intellect as your nobility and beauty would warrant the world in supposing, you will listen to me.”

“I—­I hear,” said Flora, as she still, dragging the chair with her, increased the distance between them.

“’Tis well.  You are now more composed.”

She fixed her eyes upon the face of Varney with a shudder.  There could be no mistake.  It was the same which, with the strange, glassy looking eyes, had glared upon her on that awful night of the storm when she was visited by the vampyre.  And Varney returned that gaze unflinchingly There was a hideous and strange contortion of his face now as he said,—­

“You are beautiful.  The most cunning statuary might well model some rare work of art from those rounded limbs, that were surely made to bewitch the gazer.  Your skin rivals the driven snow—­what a face of loveliness, and what a form of enchantment.”

She did not speak, but a thought came across her mind, which at once crimsoned her cheek—­she knew she had fainted on the first visit of the vampyre, and now he, with a hideous reverence, praised beauties which he might have cast his demoniac eyes over at such a time.

“You understand me,” he said.  “Well, let that pass.  I am something allied to humanity yet.”