“Your message shall be faithfully delivered, and doubt not that it will be received with grateful feelings.  Nevertheless I should have much wished to have been in a position to inform her of more particulars.”

“Come to me here at midnight to-morrow, and you shall know all.  I will have no reservation with you, no concealments; you shall know whom I have had to battle against, and how it is that a world of evil passions took possession of my heart and made me what I am.”

“Are you firm in this determination, Varney—­will you indeed tell me no more to-night?”

“No more, I have said it.  Leave me now.  I have need of more repose, for of late sleep has seldom closed my eyelids.”

Charles Holland was convinced, from the positive manner in which he spoke, that nothing more in the shape of information, at that time, was to be expected from Varney; and being fearful that if he urged this strange being too far, at a time when he did not wish it, he might refuse all further communication, he thought it prudent to leave him, so he said to him,—­

“Be assured, Varney, I shall keep the appointment you have made, with an expectation when we do meet of being rewarded by a recital of some full particulars.”

“You shall not he disappointed; farewell, farewell!”

Charles Holland bade him adieu, and left the place.

Although he had now acquired all the information he hoped to take away with him when Varney first began to be communicative, yet, when he came to consider how strange and unaccountable a being he had been in communication with, Charles could not but congratulate himself that he had heard so much, for, from the manner of Varney, he could well suppose that that was, indeed, the first time he had been so communicative upon subjects which evidently held so conspicuous a place in his heart.

And he had abundance of hope, likewise, from what had been said by Varney, that he would keep his word, and communicate to him fully all else that he required to know; and when he recollected those words which Varney had used, signifying that he knew the danger of half confidences, that hope grew into a certainty, and Charles began to have no doubt but that on the next evening all that was mysterious in the various affairs connected with the vampyre would become clear and open to the light of day.

He strolled down the lane in which the lone house was situated, revolving these matters in his mind, and when he arrived at its entrance, he was rather surprised to see a throng of persons hastily moving onward, with come appearance of dismay about them, and anxiety depicted upon their countenances.

He stopped a lad, and inquired of him the cause of the seeming tumult.

“Why, sir, the fact is,” said the boy, “a crowd from the town’s been burning down Bannerworth Hall, and they’ve killed a man”

“Bannerworth Hall! you must be mistaken.”