Then Karl knew that
he might speak to him of Lilith; and he spoke, and was heard with a smile.
But he did not dare to tell him the truth of the vampire story till one
day that Teufelsbuerst was lying on the floor of a room in Karl's ancestral
castle, half smothered in grandchildren; when the only answer it drew from
the old man was a kind of shuddering laugh and the words--'Don't speak of
it, Karl, my boy!'"
* * * * *
No one had interrupted Harry. His brother had put a shovelful of coals on
the fire, to keep up the flame; but not a word had been spoken. The cold
moon had shone in at the windows all the time, her light made yet colder
by the snowy sheen from the face of the earth; and any horror that the
story could generate had had full freedom to operate on the minds of the
listeners.
"Well, I'm glad its over, for my part," said Mrs. Bloomfield. "It made my
flesh creep."
"I do not see any good in founding a story upon a superstition. One knows
it is false, all the time," said Mrs.
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