After
all, you know, doctor, it's my affair, and not yours. Let him say what
he likes; where's the odds? It's of no consequence." "I do not expect. Admiral Bell," said Henry, "that it is to you; but it
is to me." "Psha!" "Respecting you, sir, as I do--"

"Gammon!" "I must confess that I did expect--"

"What you didn't get; therefore, there's an end of that. Now, I tell you
what, Henry, Sir Francis Varney is within this house; at least, I have
reason to suppose so." "Then," exclaimed Henry, impetuously, "I will wring from him answers to
various questions which concern my peace and happiness." "Please, gentlemen," said the woman Deborah, making her appearance, "Sir
Francis Varney has gone out, and he says I'm to show you all the door,
as soon as it is convenient for you all to walk out of it." "I feel convinced," said Mr. Chillingworth, "that it will be a useless
search now to attempt to find Sir Francis Varney here. Let me beg of you
all to come away; and believe me that I do not speak lightly, or with a
view to get you from here, when I say, that after I have heard something
from you, Henry, which I shall ask you to relate to me, painful though
it may be, I shall be able to suggest some explanation of many things
which appear at present obscure, and to put you in a course of freeing
you from the difficulties which surround you, which, Heaven knows, I
little expected I should have it in my power to propose to any of you." "I will follow your advice, Mr. Chillingworth," said Henry; "for I have
always found that it has been dictated by good feeling as well as
correct judgment. Admiral Bell, you will oblige me much by coming away
with me now and at once." "Well," remarked the admiral, "if the doctor has really something to
say, it alters the appearance of things, and, of course, I have no
objection." Upon this, the whole three of them immediately left the place, and it
was evident that Mr. Chillingworth had something of an uncomfortable
character upon his mind. He was unusually silent and reserved, and, when
he did speak, he seemed rather inclined to turn the conversation upon
indifferent topics, than to add anything more to what he had said upon
the deeply interesting one which held so foremost a place in all their
minds. "How is Flora, now," he asked of Henry, "since her removal?" "Anxious still," said Henry; "but, I think, better." "That is well. I perceive that, naturally, we are all three walking
towards Bannerworth Hall, and, perhaps, it is as well that on that spot
I should ask of you, Henry, to indulge me with a confidence such as,
under ordinary circumstances, I should not at all feel myself justified
in requiring of you." "To what does it relate?" said Henry. "You may be assured, Mr.
Chillingworth, that I am not likely to refuse my confidence to you, whom
I have so much reason to respect as an attached friend of myself and my
family." "You will not object, likewise, I hope," added Mr. Chillingworth, "to
extend that confidence to Admiral Bell; for, as you well know, a truer
and more warm-hearted man than he does not exist." "What do you expect for that, doctor?" said the admiral. "There is nothing," said Henry, "that I could relate at all, that I
should shrink from relating to Admiral Bell." "Well, my boy," said the admiral, "and all I can reply to that is, you
are quite right; for there can be nothing that you need shrink from
telling me, so far as regards the fact of trusting me with it goes." "I am assured of that." "A British officer, once pledging his word, prefers death to breaking
it. Whatever you wish kept secret in the communication you make to me,
say so, and it will never pass my lips." "Why, sir, the fact is," said Henry, "that what I am about to relate to
you consists not so much of secrets as of matters which would be painful
to my feelings to talk of more than may be absolutely required." "I understand you." "Let me, for a moment," said Mr Chillingworth, "put myself right. I do
not suspect, Mr. Henry Bannerworth, that you fancy I ask you to make a
recital of circumstances which must be painful to you from any idle
motive. But let me declare that I have now a stronger impulse, which
induces me to wish to hear from your own lips those matters which
popular rumour may have greatly exaggerated or vitiated." "It is scarcely possible," remarked Henry, sadly, "that popular rumour
should exaggerate the facts." "Indeed!" "No. They are, unhappily, of themselves, in their bare truthfulness, so
full of all that can be grievous to those who are in any way connected
with them, that there needs no exaggeration to invest them with more
terror, or with more of that sadness which must ever belong to a
recollection of them in my mind." In suchlike discourse as this, the time was passed, until Henry
Bannerworth and his friends once more reached the Hall, from which he,
with his family, had so recently removed, in consequence of the fearful
persecution to which they had been subjected. They passed again into the garden which they all knew so well, and then
Henry paused and looked around him with a deep sigh. In answer to an inquiring glance from Mr. Chillingworth, he said,--

"Is it not strange, now, that I should have only been away from here a
space of time which may be counted by hours, and yet all seems changed. I could almost fancy that years had elapsed since I had looked at it." "Oh," remarked the doctor, "time is always by the imagination measured
by the number of events which are crowded into a given space of it, and
not by its actual duration. Come into the house; there you will find all
just as you left it, Henry, and you can tell us your story at leisure." "The air," said Henry, "about here is fresh and pleasant. Let us sit
down in the summer-house yonder, and there I will tell you all. It has a
local interest, too, connected with the tale." This was agreed to, and, in a few moments, the admiral, Mr.
Chillingworth, and Henry were seated in the same summer-house which had
witnessed the strange interview between Sir Francis Varney and Flora
Bannerworth, in which he had induced her to believe that he felt for the
distress he had occasioned her, and was strongly impressed with the
injustice of her sufferings. Henry was silent for some few moments, and then he said, with a deep
sigh, as he looked mournfully around him,--

[Illustration]

"It was on this spot that my father breathed his last, and hence have I
said that it has a local interest in the tale I have to tell, which
makes it the most fitting place in which to tell it." "Oh," said the admiral, "he died here, did he?" "Yes, where you are now sitting." "Very good, I have seen many a brave man die in my time, and I hope to
see a few more, although, I grant you, the death in the heat of
conflict, and fighting for our country, is a vastly different thing to
some shore-going mode of leaving the world." "Yes," said Henry, as if pursuing his own meditations, rather than
listening to the admiral.