Away bustled the doctor.

“Well,” said Charles, “what do you think of that, Mr. Henry?”

“I think he knows what he’s about.”

“That may be; but I’ll be hanged if anybody else does.  The doctor is by no means favourable to the march of popular information; and I really think he might have given us some food for reflection, instead of leaving us so utterly and entirely at fault as he has; and you know he’s taken away your memorandum even.”

“Let him have it, Charles—­let him have it; it is safe with him.  The old man may be, and I believe is, a little whimsical and crotchety; but he means abundantly well, and he’s just one of those sort of persons, and always was, who will do good his own way, or not at all; so we must take the good with the bad in those cases, and let Dr. Chillingworth do as he pleases.”

“I cannot say it is nothing to me, although those words were rising to my lips, because you know, Henry, that everything which concerns you or yours is something to me; and therefore it is that I feel extremely anxious for the solution of all this mystery.  Before I hear the sequel of that which Varney, the vampyre, has so strongly made me a confidant of, I will, at all events, make an effort to procure his permission to communicate it to all those who are in any way beneficially interested in the circumstances.  Should he refuse me that permission, I am almost inclined myself to beg him to withhold his confidence.”

“Nay, do not do so, Charles—­do not do that, I implore you.  Recollect, although you cannot make us joint recipients with you in your knowledge, you can make use of it, probably, to our advantage, in saving us, perchance, from the different consequences, so that you can make what you know in some way beneficial to us, although not in every way.”

“There is reason in that, and I give in at once.  Be it so, Henry.  I will wait on him, and if I cannot induce him to change his determination, and allow me to tell some other as well as Flora, I must give in, and take the thing as a secret, although I shall not abandon a hope, even after he has told me all he has to tell, that I may induce him to permit me to make a general confidence, instead of the partial one he has empowered me to do.”

“It may be so; and, at all events, we must not reject a proffered good because it is not quite so complete as it might be.”

“You are right; I will keep my appointment with him, entertaining the most sanguine hope that our troubles and disasters—­I say our, because I consider myself quite associated in thought, interest, and feelings with your family—­may soon be over.”

“Heaven grant it may be so, for your’s and Flora’s sake; but I feel that Bannerworth Hall will never again be the place it was to us.  I should prefer that we sought for new associations, which I have no doubt we may find, and that among us we get up some other home that would be happier, because not associated with so many sad scenes in our history.”