Adela Cathcart, Volume 3 by George MacDonald
page 136 of 207 (65%)
page 136 of 207 (65%)
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had not bitten her, for she had been in such a strange condition of mind
that she might not have felt it, but she believed that he had restrained the impulses of his vampire nature, and had left her, lest he should yet yield to them. She fell fast asleep; and, when morning came, there was not, as far as she could judge, one of those triangular leech-like perforations to be found upon her whole body. Will it be believed that the moment she was satisfied of this, she was seized by a terrible jealousy, lest Karl should have gone and bitten some one else? Most people will wonder that she should not have gone out of her senses at once; but there was all the difference between a visit from a real vampire and a visit from a man she had begun to love, even although she took him for a vampire. All the difference does _not_ lie in a name. They were very different causes, and the effects must be very different. "When Teufelsbuerst came down in the morning, he crept into the studio like a murderer. There lay the awful white block, seeming to his eyes just the same as he had left it. What was to be done with it? He dared not open it. Mould and model must go together. But whither? If inquiry should be made after Wolkenlicht, and this were discovered anywhere on his premises, would it not be enough to bring him at once to the gallows? Therefore it would be dangerous to bury it in the garden, or in the cellar. "'Besides,' thought he, with a shudder, 'that would be to fix the vampire as a guest for ever.'--And the horrors of the past night rushed back upon his imagination with renewed intensity. What would it be to have the dead Karl crawling about his house for ever, now inside, now out, now sitting on the stairs, now staring in at the windows? "He would have dragged it to the bottom of his garden, past which the Moldau flowed, and plunged it into the stream; but then, should the |
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