"CHARLES HOLLAND."
Henry's letter was this:--
"MY DEAR SIR,
"If you calmly and dispassionately consider the painful and distressing circumstances in which your family are placed, I am sure that, far from blaming me for the step which this note will announce to you I have taken, you will be the first to give me credit for acting with an amount of prudence and foresight which was highly necessary under the circumstances.
"If the supposed visits of a vampyre to your sister Flora had turned out, as first I hoped they would, a delusion and been in any satisfactory manner explained away I should certainly have felt pride and pleasure in fulfilling my engagement to that young lady.
"You must, however, yourself feel that the amount of evidence in favour of a belief that an actual vampyre has visited Flora, enforces a conviction of its truth.
"I cannot, therefore, make her my wife under such very singular circumstances.
"Perhaps you may blame me for not taking at once advantage of the permission given me to forego my engagement when first I came to your house; but the fact is, I did not then in the least believe in the existence of the vampyre, but since a positive conviction of that most painful fact has now forced itself upon me, I beg to decline the honour of an alliance which I had at one time looked forward to with the most considerable satisfaction.
"I shall be on the continent as fast as conveyances can take me, therefore, should you entertain any romantic notions of calling me to an account for a course of proceeding I think perfectly and fully justifiable, you will not find me.
"Accept the assurances of my respect for yourself and pity for your sister, and believe me to be, my dear sir, your sincere friend,
"CHARLES HOLLAND."
These two letters might well make the admiral stare at Henry Bannerworth, and Henry stare at him.
An occurrence so utterly and entirely unexpected by both of them, was enough to make them doubt the evidence of their own senses. But there were the letters, as a damning evidence of the outrageous fact, and Charles Holland was gone.
It was the admiral who first recovered from the stunning effect of the epistles, and he, with a gesture of perfect fury, exclaimed,--
"The scoundrel--the cold-blooded villain! I renounce him for ever! he is no nephew of mine; he is some d----d imposter! Nobody with a dash of my family blood in his veins would have acted so to save himself from a thousand deaths."
"Who shall we trust now," said Henry, "when those whom we take to our inmost hearts deceive us thus? This is the greatest shock I have yet received. If there be a pang greater than another, surely it is to be found in the faithlessness and heartlessness of one we loved and trusted."
"He is a scoundrel!" roared the admiral. "D--n him, he'll die on a dunghill, and that's too good a place for him. I cast him off--I'll find him out, and old as I am, I'll fight him--I'll wring his neck, the rascal; and, as for poor dear Miss Flora, God bless her! I'll--I'll marry her myself, and make her an admiral.--I'll marry her myself. Oh, that I should be uncle to such a rascal!"
"Calm yourself," said Henry, "no one can blame you."
"Yes, you can; I had no right to be his uncle, and I was an old fool to love him."
The old man sat down, and his voice became broken with emotion as he said,--
"Sir, I tell you I would have died willingly rather than this should have happened. This will kill me now,--I shall die now of shame and grief."
Tears gushed from the admiral's eyes and the sight of the noble old man's emotion did much to calm the anger of Henry which, although he said but little, was boiling at his heart like a volcano.
"Admiral Bell," he said, "you have nothing to do with this business; we can not blame you for the heartlessness of another. I have but one favour to ask of you."
"What--what can I do?"
"Say no more about him at all."
"I can't help saying something about him. You ought to turn me out of the house."
"Heaven forbid! What for?"
"Because I'm his uncle--his d----d old fool of an uncle, that always thought so much of him."
"Nay, my good sir, that was a fault on the right side, and cannot discredit you. I thought him the most perfect of human beings."
"Oh, if I could but have guessed this."
"It was impossible. Such duplicity never was equalled in this world--it was impossible to foresee it."
"Hold--hold! did he give you fifty pounds?"
"What?"
"Did he give you fifty pounds?"