Varney made a gesture of impatience, as he said,—
"Heaven works no special matters now. Flora Bannerworth, if you have as much intellect as your nobility and beauty would warrant the world in supposing, you will listen to me."
"I—I hear," said Flora, as she still, dragging the chair with her, increased the distance between them.
"'Tis well. You are now more composed."
She fixed her eyes upon the face of Varney with a shudder. There could be no mistake. It was the same which, with the strange, glassy looking eyes, had glared upon her on that awful night of the storm when she was visited by the vampyre. And Varney returned that gaze unflinchingly There was a hideous and strange contortion of his face now as he said,—
"You are beautiful. The most cunning statuary might well model some rare work of art from those rounded limbs, that were surely made to bewitch the gazer. Your skin rivals the driven snow—what a face of loveliness, and what a form of enchantment."
She did not speak, but a thought came across her mind, which at once crimsoned her cheek—she knew she had fainted on the first visit of the vampyre, and now he, with a hideous reverence, praised beauties which he might have cast his demoniac eyes over at such a time.
"You understand me," he said. "Well, let that pass. I am something allied to humanity yet."
"Speak your errand," gasped Flora, "or come what may, I scream for help to those who will not be slow to render it."
"I know it."