Fortune he had enough for both; death had not even threatened to rob him
of the prize of such a noble and faithful heart which he had won. But a
horrible superstition had arisen, which seemed to place at once an
impassable abyss between them, and to say to him, in a voice of
thundering denunciation,--

"Charles Holland, will you have a vampyre for your bride?" The thought was terrific. He paced the gloomy chamber to and fro with
rapid strides, until the idea came across his mind that by so doing he
might not only be proclaiming to his kind entertainers how much he was
mentally distracted, but he likewise might be seriously distracting
them. The moment this occurred to him he sat down, and was profoundly still
for some time. He then glanced at the light which had been given to him,
and he found himself almost unconsciously engaged in a mental
calculation as to how long it would last him in the night. Half ashamed, then, of such terrors, as such a consideration would seem
to indicate, he was on the point of hastily extinguishing it, when he
happened to cast his eyes on the now mysterious and highly interesting
portrait in the panel. The picture, as a picture, was well done, whether it was a correct
likeness or not of the party whom it represented. It was one of those
kind of portraits that seem so life-like, that, as you look at them,
they seem to return your gaze fully, and even to follow you with their
eyes from place to place. By candle-light such an effect is more likely to become striking and
remarkable than by daylight; and now, as Charles Holland shaded his own
eyes from the light, so as to cast its full radiance upon the portrait,
he felt wonderfully interested in its life-like appearance. "Here is true skill," he said; "such as I have not before seen. How
strangely this likeness of a man whom I never saw seems to gaze upon
me." Unconsciously, too, he aided the effect, which he justly enough called
life-like, by a slight movement of the candle, such as any one not
blessed with nerves of iron would be sure to make, and such a movement
made the face look as if it was inspired with vitality. Charles remained looking at the portrait for a considerable period of
time. He found a kind of fascination in it which prevented him from
drawing his eyes away from it. It was not fear which induced him to
continue gazing on it, but the circumstance that it was a likeness of
the man who, after death, was supposed to have borrowed so new and so
hideous an existence, combined with its artistic merits, chained him to
the spot. "I shall now," he said, "know that face again, let me see it where I
may, or under what circumstances I may. Each feature is now indelibly
fixed upon my memory--I never can mistake it." He turned aside as he uttered these words, and as he did so his eyes
fell upon a part of the ornamental frame which composed the edge of the
panel, and which seemed to him to be of a different colour from the
surrounding portion. Curiosity and increased interest prompted him at once to make a closer
inquiry into the matter; and, by a careful and diligent scrutiny, he was
almost induced to come to the positive opinion, that it no very distant
period in time past, the portrait had been removed from the place it
occupied. When once this idea, even vague and indistinct as it was, in consequence
of the slight grounds he formed it on, had got possession of his mind,
he felt most anxious to prove its verification or its fallacy. He held the candle in a variety of situations, so that its light fell in
different ways on the picture; and the more he examined it, the more he
felt convinced that it must have been moved lately. It would appear as if, in its removal, a piece of the old oaken carved
framework of the panel had been accidentally broken off, which caused
the new look of the fracture, and that this accident, from the nature of
the broken bit of framing, could have occurred in any other way than
from an actual or attempted removal of the picture, he felt was
extremely unlikely. He set down the candle on a chair near at hand, and tried if the panel
was fast in its place. Upon the very first touch, he felt convinced it
was not so, and that it easily moved. How to get it out, though,
presented a difficulty, and to get it out was tempting. "Who knows," he said to himself, "what may be behind it? This is an old
baronial sort of hall, and the greater portion of it was, no doubt,
built at a time when the construction of such places as hidden chambers
and intricate staircases were, in all buildings of importance,
considered a disiderata." That he should make some discovery behind the portrait, now became an
idea that possessed him strongly, although he certainly had no definite
grounds for really supposing that he should do so. Perhaps the wish was more father to the thought than he, in the partial
state of excitement he was in, really imagined; but so it was. He felt
convinced that he should not be satisfied until he had removed that
panel from the wall, and seen what was immediately behind it. After the panel containing the picture had been placed where it was, it
appeared that pieces of moulding had been inserted all around, which had
had the effect of keeping it in its place, and it was a fracture of one
of these pieces which had first called Charles Holland's attention to
the probability of the picture having been removed. That he should have
to get two, at least, of the pieces of moulding away, before he could
hope to remove the picture, was to him quite apparent, and he was
considering how he should accomplish such a result, when he was suddenly
startled by a knock at his chamber door. Until that sudden demand for admission at his door came, he scarcely
knew to what a nervous state he had worked himself up. It was an odd
sort of tap--one only--a single tap, as if some one demanded admittance,
and wished to awaken his attention with the least possible chance of
disturbing any one else. "Come in," said Charles, for he knew he had not fastened his door; "come
in." There was no reply, but after a moment's pause, the same sort of low tap
came again. Again he cried "come in," but, whoever it was, seemed determined that
the door should be opened for him, and no movement was made from the
outside. A third time the tap came, and Charles was very close to the
door when he heard it, for with a noiseless step he had approached it
intending to open it. The instant this third mysterious demand for
admission came, he did open it wide. There was no one there! In an
instant he crossed the threshold into the corridor, which ran right and
left. A window at one end of it now sent in the moon's rays, so that it
was tolerably light, but he could see no one. Indeed, to look for any
one, he felt sure was needless, for he had opened his chamber-door
almost simultaneously with the last knock for admission.