“I know I am, as I always am.”

Marchdale could not forbear a smile at the opinionated old man, who thought no one’s opinion upon any subject at all equal to his own; but he made no remark, and only waited, as did Henry, with evident anxiety for the return of George.

The distance was not great, and George certainly performed his errand quickly, for he was back in less time than they had thought he could return in.  The moment he came into the room, he said, without waiting for any inquiry to be made of him,—­

“We are at fault again.  I am assured that Sir Francis Varney never stirred from home after eight o’clock last evening.”

“D—­n it, then,” said the admiral, “let us give the devil his due.  He could not have had any hand in this business.”

“Certainly not.”

“From whom, George, did you get your information?” asked Henry, in a desponding tone.

“From, first of all, one of his servants, whom I met away from the house, and then from one whom I saw at the house.”

“There can be no mistake, then?”

“Certainly none.  The servants answered me at once, and so frankly that I cannot doubt it.”

The door of the room was slowly opened, and Flora came in.  She looked almost the shadow of what she had been but a few weeks before.  She was beautiful, but she almost realised the poet’s description of one who had suffered much, and was sinking into an early grave, the victim of a broken heart:—­

      “She was more beautiful than death,
      And yet as sad to look upon.”

Her face was of a marble paleness, and as she clasped her hands, and glanced from face to face, to see if she could gather hope and consolation from the expression of any one, she might have been taken for some exquisite statue of despair.

“Have you found him?” she said.  Have you found Charles?”

“Flora, Flora,” said Henry, as he approached her.

“Nay, answer me; have you found him?  You went to seek him.  Dead or alive, have you found him?”

“We have not, Flora.”

“Then I must seek him myself.  None will search for him as I will search; I must myself seek him.  ’Tis true affection that can alone be successful in such a search.”

“Believe me, dear Flora, that all has been done which the shortness of the time that has elapsed would permit.  Further measures will now immediately be taken.  Rest assured, dear sister, that all will be done that the utmost zeal can suggest.”

“They have killed him! they have killed him!” she said, mournfully.  “Oh, God, they have killed him!  I am not now mad, but the time will come when I must surely be maddened.  The vampyre has killed Charles Holland—­the dreadful vampyre!”

“Nay, now, Flora, this is frenzy.”

“Because he loved me has he been destroyed.  I know it, I know it.  The vampyre has doomed me to destruction.  I am lost, and all who loved me will be involved in one common ruin on my account.  Leave me all of you to perish.  If, for iniquities done in our family, some one must suffer to appease the divine vengeance, let that one be me, and only me.”