At its conclusion, he screwed up his mouth into an extremely
small compass, and doubling up the paper, he put it into his capacious
waistcoat pocket, saying as he did so,--

"Oh! oh! oh! oh! hum!" "Well, doctor," said Henry; "we are waiting for your opinion." "My opinion! Well, then, my dear boy, I must say, my opinion, to the
best of my belief is, that I really don't know anything about it." "Then, perhaps, you'll surrender us the memorandum," said Charles;
"because, if you don't know anything, we may as well make a little
inquiry." "Ha!" said the worthy doctor; "we can't put old heads upon young
shoulders, that's quite clear. Now, my good young men, be patient and
quiet; recollect, that what you know you're acquainted with, and that
that which is hidden from you, you cannot very well come to any very
correct conclusion upon. There's a right side and a wrong one you may
depend, to every question; and he who walks heedlessly in the dark, is
very apt to run his head against a post. Good evening, my boys--good
evening." 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." "Be it so; and I am sure that the admiral would gladly give way to such
an arrangement. He has often intimated that he thought Bannerworth Hall
a dull place; consequently, although he pretends to have purchased it of
you, I think he will be very glad to leave it." [Illustration]

"Be it so, then. If it should really happen that we are upon the eve of
any circumstances that will really tend to relieve us from our misery
and embarrassments, we will seek for some pleasanter abode than the
Hall, which you may well imagine, since it became the scene of that
dreadful tragedy that left us fatherless, has borne but a distasteful
appearance to all our eyes." "I don't wonder at that, and am only surprised that, after such a thing
had happened any of you liked to inhabit the place." "We did not like, but our poverty forced us. You have no notion of the
difficulties through which we have struggled; and the fact that we had a
home rent free was one of so much importance to us, that had it been
surrounded by a thousand more disagreeables than it was, we must have
put up with it; but now that we owe so much to the generosity of your
uncle, I suppose we can afford to talk of what we like and of what we
don't like." "You can, Henry, and it shall not be my fault if you do not always
afford to do so; and now, as the time is drawing on, I think I will
proceed at once to Varney, for it is better to be soon than late, and
get from him the remainder of his story." *       *       *       *       *

There were active influences at work, to prevent Sir Francis Varney from
so quickly as he had arranged to do, carrying out his intention of
making Charles Holland acquainted with the history of the eventful
period of his life, which had been associated with Marmaduke
Bannerworth. One would have scarcely thought it possible that anything now would have
prevented Varney from concluding his strange narrative; but that he was
prevented, will appear. The boy who had been promised such liberal payment by the Hungarian
nobleman, for betraying the place of Varney's concealment, we have
already stated, felt bitterly the disappointment of not being met,
according to promise, at the corner of the lane, by that individual. It not only deprived him of the half-crowns, which already in
imagination he had laid out, but it was a great blow to his own
importance, for after his discovery of the residence of the vampyre, he
looked upon himself as quite a public character, and expected great
applause for his cleverness. But when the Hungarian nobleman came not, all these dreams began to
vanish into thin air, and, like the unsubstantial fabric of a vision, to
leave no trace behind them. He got dreadfully aggravated, and his first thought was to go to Varney,
and see what he could get from him, by betraying the fact that some one
was actively in search of him. That seemed, however, a doubtful good, and perhaps there was some
personal dread of the vampyre mixed up with the rejection of this
proposition.