It was a bad proposal. I am a
vampyre still." "Spare me! spare me!" "Blood!" Flora sank upon her knees, and uplifted her hands to heaven. "Mercy,
mercy!" she said. "Blood!" said Varney, and she saw his hideous, fang-like teeth. "Blood! Flora Bannerworth, the vampyre's motto. I have asked you to love me, and
you will not--the penalty be yours." "No, no!" said Flora. "Can it be possible that even you, who have
already spoken with judgment and precision, can be so unjust? you must
feel that, in all respects, I have been a victim, most gratuitously--a
sufferer, while there existed no just cause that I should suffer; one
who has been tortured, not from personal fault, selfishness, lapse of
integrity, or honourable feelings, but because you have found it
necessary, for the prolongation of your terrific existence, to attack me
as you have done. By what plea of honour, honesty, or justice, can I be
blamed for not embracing an alternative which is beyond all human
control?--I cannot love you." "Then be content to suffer. Flora Bannerworth, will you not, even for a
time, to save yourself and to save me, become mine?" "Horrible proposition!" "Then am I doomed yet, perhaps, for many a cycle of years, to spread
misery and desolation around me; and yet I love you with a feeling which
has in it more of gratefulness and unselfishness than ever yet found a
home within my breast. I would fain have you, although you cannot save
me; there may yet be a chance, which shall enable you to escape from the
persecution of my presence." "Oh! glorious chance!" said Flora. "Which way can it come? tell me how I
may embrace it, and such grateful feelings as a heart-stricken mourner
can offer to him who has rescued her from her deep affliction, shall yet
be yours." "Hear me, then, Flora Bannerworth, while I state to you some particulars
of mysterious existence, of such beings as myself, which never yet have
been breathed to mortal ears." Flora looked intently at him, and listened, while, with a serious
earnestness of manner, he detailed to her something of the physiology of
the singular class of beings which the concurrence of all circumstances
tended to make him appear. "Flora," he said, "it is not that I am so enamoured of an existence to
be prolonged only by such frightful means, which induces me to become a
terror to you or to others. Believe me, that if my victims, those whom
my insatiable thirst for blood make wretched, suffer much, I, the
vampyre, am not without my moments of unutterable agony. But it is a
mysterious law of our nature, that as the period approaches when the
exhausted energies of life require a new support from the warm, gushing
fountain of another's veins, the strong desire to live grows upon us,
until, in a paroxysm of wild insanity, which will recognise no
obstacles, human or divine, we seek a victim." "A fearful state!" said Flora. "It is so; and, when the dreadful repast is over, then again the pulse
beats healthfully, and the wasted energies of a strange kind of vitality
are restored to us, we become calm again, but with that calmness comes
all the horror, all the agony of reflection, and we suffer far more than
tongue can tell." "You have my pity," said Flora; "even you have my pity." "I might well demand it, if such a feeling held a place within your
breast. I might well demand your pity, Flora Bannerworth, for never
crawled an abject wretch upon the earth's rotundity, so pitiable as I." "Go on, go on." "I will, and with such brief conclusions as I may. Having once attacked
any human being, we feel a strange, but terribly impulsive desire again
to seek that person for more blood. But I love you, Flora; the small
amount of sensibility that still lingers about my preternatural
existence, acknowledges in you a pure and better spirit. I would fain
save you." "Oh! tell me how I may escape the terrible infliction." "That can only be done by flight. Leave this place, I implore you! leave
it as quickly as the movement may be made. Linger not--cast not one
regretful look behind you on your ancient home. I shall remain in this
locality for years. Let me lose sight of you, I will not pursue you;
but, by force of circumstances, I am myself compelled to linger here. Flight is the only means by which you may avoid a doom as terrific as
that which I endure." "But tell me," said Flora, after a moment's pause, during which she
appeared to be endeavouring to gather courage to ask some fearful
question; "tell me if it be true that those who have once endured the
terrific attack of a vampyre, become themselves, after death, one of
that dread race?" "It is by such means," said Varney, "that the frightful brood increases;
but time and circumstances must aid the development of the new and
horrible existence. You, however, are safe." "Safe! Oh! say that word again." "Yes, safe; not once or twice will the vampyre's attack have sufficient
influence on your mortal frame, as to induce a susceptibility on your
part to become coexistent with such as he. The attacks must be often
repeated, and the termination of mortal existence must be a consequence
essential, and direct from those attacks, before such a result may be
anticipated." "Yes, yes; I understand." "If you were to continue my victim from year to year, the energies of
life would slowly waste away, and, till like some faint taper's gleam,
consuming more sustenance than it received, the veriest accident would
extinguish your existence, and then, Flora Bannerworth, you might become
a vampyre." "Oh! horrible! most horrible!" "If by chance, or by design, the least glimpse of the cold moonbeams
rested on your apparently lifeless remains, you would rise again and be
one of us--a terror to yourself and a desolation to all around." "Oh! I will fly from here," said Flora. "The hope of escape from so
terrific and dreadful a doom shall urge me onward; if flight can save
me--flight from Bannerworth Hall, I will pause not until continents and
oceans divide us." "It is well. I'm able now thus calmly to reason with you. A few short
months more and I shall feel the languor of death creeping over me, and
then will come that mad excitement of the brain, which, were you hidden
behind triple doors of steel, would tempt me again to seek your
chamber--again to seize you in my full embrace--again to draw from your
veins the means of prolonged life--again to convulse your very soul with
terror." "I need no incentives," said Flora, with a shudder, "in the shape of
descriptions of the past, to urge me on." "You will fly from Bannerworth Hall?" "Yes, yes!" said Flora, "it shall be so; its very chambers now are
hideous with the recollection of scenes enacted in them. I will urge my
brothers, my mother, all to leave, and in some distant clime we will
find security and shelter. There even we will learn to think of you with
more of sorrow than of anger--more pity than reproach--more curiosity
than loathing."