"Shall I order any refreshment for you ?" "No--no," gasped Henry; "for the love of truth tell me! Is--is your name really Varney!" "Sir ?" "Have you no other name to which, perhaps, a better title you could urge ?" "Mr.Bannerworth, I can assure you that I am too proud of the name of the family to which I belong to exchange it for any other, be it what it may." "How wonderfully like!" "I grieve to see you so much distressed.

Mr.Bannerworth.I presume ill health has thus shattered your nerves ?" "No; ill health has not done the work.

I know not what to say, Sir Francis Varney, to you; but recent events in my family have made the sight of you full of horrible conjectures." "What mean you, sir ?" "You know, from common report, that we have had a fearful visitor at our house." "A vampyre, I have heard," said Sir Francis Varney, with a bland, and almost beautiful smile, which displayed his white glistening teeth to perfection.
"Yes; a vampyre, and--and--" "I pray you go on, sir; you surely are far above the vulgar superstition of believing in such matters ?" "My judgment is assailed in too many ways and shapes for it to hold out probably as it ought to do against so hideous a belief, but never was it so much bewildered as now." "Why so ?" "Because--" "Nay, Henry," whispered Mr.Marchdale, "it is scarcely civil to tell Sir Francis to his face, that he resembles a vampyre." "I must, I must." "Pray, sir," interrupted Varney to Marchdale, "permit Mr.Bannerworth to speak here freely.

There is nothing in the whole world I so much admire as candour." "Then you so much resemble the vampyre," added Henry, "that--that I know not what to think." "Is it possible ?" said Varney.
"It is a damning fact." "Well, it's unfortunate for me, I presume?
Ah!" Varney gave a twinge of pain, as if some sudden bodily ailment had attacked him severely.
"You are unwell, sir ?" said Marchdale.
"No, no--no," he said; "I--hurt my arm, and happened accidentally to touch the arm of this chair with it." "A hurt ?" said Henry.
"Yes, Mr.Bannerworth." "A--a wound ?" "Yes, a wound, but not much more than skin deep.

In fact, little beyond an abrasion of the skin." "May I inquire how you came by it ?" "Oh, yes.