This was
horrible enough if the vampire were not really the person he represented;
but if in any sense it were Karl himself, at least it gave some
expectation of a more prolonged existence than her father had taught her
to look for; and if love anything like her mother's still lasted, even
along with the habits of a vampire, there was something to hope for in the
future. And then, though he had visited her, he had not, as far as she was
aware, deprived her of a drop of blood. She could not be certain that he
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.
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