Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/114

 mother, and her heart was broken for the love she bore her boy

"His death had been very shocking, very sudden. People talked of a ruptured blood-vessel, a fall on his bed-room floor, a doctor not to be found when sent for; a series of fatalities that precluded the possibility of saving him; but those who pretended to know best affirmed that not all the doctors in Europe could have done any good, for when his servant went to call him in the morning he found his master lying stark and stiff, having been dead some hours. There was a pool of blood on his carpet; there were ashes of burnt letters in his fire-place; more, they whispered with meaning shrugs and solemn, awe-struck faces—

"You can understand now that I believe in Vampires."