“No, no.”

“In the name of all that is great, and good, and just, I call upon you for justice.”

“What have I to do with such an invocation?  Utter such a sentiment to men who, like yourself, are invested with the reality as well as the outward show of human nature.”

“Nay, Sir Francis Varney, now you belie yourself.  You have passed through a long, and, perchance, a stormy life.  Can you look back upon your career, and find no reminiscences of the past that shall convince you that you are of the great family of man, and have had abundance of human feelings and of human affections?”

“Peace, peace!”

“Nay, Sir Francis Varney, I will take your word, and if you will lay your hand upon your heart, and tell me truly that you never felt what it was to love—­to have all feeling, all taste, and all hope of future joy, concentrated in one individual, I will despair, and leave you.  If you will tell me that never, in your whole life, you have felt for any fair and glorious creature, as I now feel for Flora Bannerworth, a being for whom you could have sacrificed not only existence, but all the hopes of a glorious future that bloom around it—­if you will tell me, with the calm, dispassionate aspect of truth, that you have held yourself aloof from such human feelings, I will no longer press you to a disclosure which I shall bring no argument to urge.”

The agitation of Sir Francis Varney’s countenance was perceptible, and Charles Holland was about to speak again, when, striking him upon the breast with his clinched hand, the vampyre checked him, saying—­

“Do you wish to drive me mad, that you thus, from memory’s hidden cells, conjure up images of the past?”

“Then there are such images to conjure up—­there are such shadows only sleeping, but which require only, as you did even now, but a touch to awaken them to life and energy.  Oh, Sir Francis Varney, do not tell me that you are not human.”

The vampyre made a furious gesture, as if he would have attacked Charles Holland; but then he sank nearly to the floor, as if soul-stricken by some recollection that unnerved his arm; he shook with unwonted emotion, and, from the frightful livid aspect of his countenance, Charles dreaded some serious accession of indisposition, which might, if nothing else did, prevent him from making the revelation he so much sought to hear from his lips.

“Varney,” he cried, “Varney, be calm! you will be listened to by one who will draw no harsh—­no hasty conclusions; by one, who, with that charity, I grieve to say, is rare, will place upon the words you utter the most favourable construction.  Tell me all, I pray you, tell me all.”

“This is strange,” said the vampyre.  “I never thought that aught human could thus have moved me.  Young man, you have touched the chords of memory; they vibrate throughout my heart, producing cadences and sounds of years long past.  Bear with me awhile.”