“Nay, no offence,” said Henry.  “I am distracted, and scarcely know what I say.  Marchdale, I know you are my sincere friend—­but, as I tell you, I am nearly mad.”

“My dear Henry, be calmer.  Consider upon what is to be said concerning this interview at home.”

“Ay; that is a consideration.”

“I should not think it advisable to mention the disagreeable fact, that in your neighbour you think you have found out the nocturnal disturber of your family.”

“No—­no.”

“I would say nothing of it.  It is not at all probable that, after what you have said to him this Sir Francis Varney, or whatever his real name may be will obtrude himself upon you.”

“If he should he die.”

“He will, perhaps, consider that such a step would be dangerous to him.”

“It would be fatal, so help me.  However, and then would I take especial care that no power of resuscitation should ever enable that man again to walk the earth.”

“They say that only way of destroying a vampyre is to fix him to the earth with a stake, so that he cannot move, and then, of course, decomposition will take its course, as in ordinary cases.”

“Fire would consume him, and be a quicker process,” said Henry.  “But these are fearful reflections, and, for the present, we will not pursue them.  Now to play the hypocrite, and endeavour to look composed and serene to my mother, and to Flora while my heart is breaking.”

The two friends had by this time reached the hall, and leaving his friend Marchdale, Henry Bannerworth, with feelings of the most unenviable description, slowly made his way to the apartment occupied by his mother and sister.

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CHAPTER XV.

The old admiral and his servant.—­The communication from the landlord of the Nelson’s arms.

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While those matters of most grave and serious import were going on at the Hall, while each day, and almost each hour in each day, was producing more and more conclusive evidence upon a matter which at first had seemed too monstrous to be at all credited, it may well be supposed what a wonderful sensation was produced among the gossip-mongers of the neighbourhood by the exaggerated reports that had reached them.

The servants, who had left the Hall on no other account, as they declared, but sheer fright at the awful visits of the vampyre, spread the news far and wide, so that in the adjoining villages and market-towns the vampyre of Bannerworth Hall became quite a staple article of conversation.

Such a positive godsend for the lovers of the marvellous had not appeared in the country side within the memory of that sapient individual—­the oldest inhabitant.

And, moreover, there was one thing which staggered some people of better education and maturer judgments, and that was, that the more they took pains to inquire into the matter, in order, if possible, to put an end to what they considered a gross lie from the commencement, the more evidence they found to stagger their own senses upon the subject.