He came out into the parlour from the room in which he had been seated during the day.  Flora and her mother were there, while Charles Holland and Henry Bannerworth had both at that moment entered the apartment.

“Good evening, Miss Bannerworth,” said Sir Francis, bowing to her, and then to her mother, Mrs. Bannerworth; “and you, Mr. Holland, I see, have been out enjoying the free breeze that plays over the hot fields.  It must be refreshing.”

“It is so, sir,” said Charles.  “I wish we could make you a partaker in our walks.”

“I wish you could with all my heart,” said Varney.

“Sir Francis,” said Flora, “must be a prisoner for some short time longer yet.”

“I ought not to consider it in any such light.  It is not imprisonment.  I have taken sanctuary.  It is the well spring of life to me,” said Varney.

“I hope it may prove so; but how do you find yourself this evening, Sir Francis Varney?”

“Really, it is difficult to say—­I fluctuate.  At times, I feel as though I should drop insensible on the earth, and then I feel better than I have done for some time previously.”

“Doctor Chillingworth will be here bye and bye, no doubt; and he must see what he can do for you to relieve you of these symptoms,” said Flora.

“I am much beholden to you—­much beholden to you; but I hope to be able to do without the good doctor’s aid in this instance, though I must admit I may appear ungrateful.”

“Not at all—­not at all.”

“Have you heard any news abroad to-day?” inquired Varney.

“None, Sir Francis—­none; there is nothing apparently stirring; and now, go out when you would, you would find nothing but what was old, quiet, and familiar.”

“We cannot wish to look upon anything with mere charms for a mind at ease, than we can see under such circumstances; but I fear there are some few old and familiar features that I should find sad havoc in.”

“You would, certainly, for the burnings and razings to the ground of some places, have made some dismal appearances; but time may efface that, and then the evil may die away, and the future will become the present, should we be able to allay popular feeling.”

“Yes,” said Sir Francis; “but popular prejudices, or justice, or feeling, are things not easily assuaged.  The people when once aroused go on to commit all kinds of excess, and there is no one point at which they will step short of the complete extirpation of some one object or other that they have taken a fancy to hunt.”

“The hubbub and excitement must subside.”

“The greater the ignorance the more persevering and the more brutal they are,” said Sir Francis; “but I must not complain of what is the necessary consequence of their state.”

“It might be otherwise.”

“So it might, and no mischief arise either; but as we cannot divert the stream, we may as well bend to the force of a current too strong to resist.”