“Flora,” he said, quietly resuming the discourse which had been broken off, “I am quite convinced now that you will be much the happier for the interview.”

“Gracious Heaven!” said Flora, “whence have you come from?”

“I have never left,” said Varney.

“But I saw you fly from this spot.”

“You did; but it was only to another immediately outside the summer house.  I had no idea of breaking off our conference so abruptly.”

“Have you anything to add to what you have already stated?”

“Absolutely nothing, unless you have a question to propose to me—­I should have thought you had, Flora.  Is there no other circumstance weighing heavily upon your mind, as well as the dreadful visitation I have subjected you to?”

“Yes,” said Flora.  “What has become of Charles Holland?”

“Listen.  Do not discard all hope; when you are far from here you will meet with him again.”

“But he has left me.”

“And yet he will be able, when you again encounter him, so far to extenuate his seeming perfidy, that you shall hold him as untouched in honour as when first he whispered to you that he loved you.”

“Oh, joy! joy!” said Flora; “by that assurance you have robbed misfortune of its sting, and richly compensated me for all that I have suffered.”

“Adieu!” said the vampyre.  “I shall now proceed to my own home by a different route to that taken by those who would kill me.”

“But after this,” said Flora, “there shall be no danger; you shall be held harmless, and our departure from Bannerworth Hall shall be so quick, that you will soon be released from all apprehension of vengeance from my brother, and I shall taste again of that happiness which I thought had fled from me for ever.”

“Farewell,” said the vampire; and folding his cloak closely around him, he strode from the summer-house, soon disappearing from her sight behind the shrubs and ample vegetation with which that garden abounded.

Flora sunk upon her knees, and uttered a brief, but heartfelt thanksgiving to Heaven for this happy change in her destiny.  The hue of health faintly again visited her cheeks, and as she now, with a feeling of more energy and strength than she had been capable of exerting for many days, walked towards the house, she felt all that delightful sensation which the mind experiences when it is shaking off the trammels of some serious evil which it delights now to find that the imagination has attired in far worse colours than the facts deserved.

It is scarcely necessary, after this, to say that the search in the wood for Sir Francis Varney was an unproductive one, and that the morning dawned upon the labours of the brother and of Mr. Marchdale, without their having discovered the least indication of the presence of Varney.  Again puzzled and confounded, they stood on the margin of the wood, and looked sadly towards the brightening windows of Bannerworth Hall, which were now reflecting with a golden radiance the slant rays of the morning sun.