Reflect upon the consequences now of a union with such a family." "Oh, Henry Bannerworth, can you suppose me so dead to all good feeling, so utterly lost to honourable impulses, as to eject from my heart her who has possession of it entirely, on such a ground as this ?" "You would be justified." "Coldly justified in prudence I might be.

There are a thousand circumstances in which a man may be justified in a particular course of action, and that course yet may be neither honourable nor just.

I love Flora; and were she tormented by the whole of the supernatural world, I should still love her.

Nay, it becomes, then, a higher and a nobler duty on my part to stand between her and those evils, if possible." "Charles--Charles," said Henry, "I cannot of course refuse to you my meed of praise and admiration for your generosity of feeling; but, remember, if we are compelled, despite all our feelings and all our predilections to the contrary, to give in to a belief in the existence of vampyres, why may we not at once receive as the truth all that is recorded of them ?" "To what do you allude ?" "To this.

That one who has been visited by a vampyre, and whose blood has formed a horrible repast for such a being, becomes, after death, one of the dreadful race, and visits others in the same way." "Now this must be insanity," cried Charles.
"It bears the aspect of it, indeed," said Henry; "oh, that you could by some means satisfy yourself that I am mad." "There may be insanity in this family," thought Charles, with such an exquisite pang of misery, that he groaned aloud.
"Already," added Henry, mournfully, "already the blighting influence of the dreadful tale is upon you, Charles.