pulled down so quick since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that
I was fond of go to grass all in a night. One of those big bats
that they call vampires had got at her in the night, and what with
his gorge and the vein left open, there wasn't enough blood in her
to let her stand up, and I had to put a bullet through her as she
lay. Jack, if you may tell me without betraying confidence, Arthur
was the first, is not that so?"
As he spoke the poor fellow looked terribly anxious. He was in a
torture of suspense regarding the woman he loved, and his utter
ignorance of the terrible mystery which seemed to surround her
intensified his pain. His very heart was bleeding, and it took all
the manhood of him, and there was a royal lot of it, too, to keep
him from breaking down. I paused before answering, for I felt that
I must not betray anything which the Professor wished kept secret,
but already he knew so much, and guessed so much, that there could
be no reason for not answering, so I answered in the same
phrase.
"That's so."
"And how long has this been going on?"
"About ten days."
"Ten days! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty
creature that we all love has had put into her veins within that
time the blood of four strong men. Man alive, her whole body
wouldn't hold it." Then coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce
half-whisper. "What took it out?"
I shook my head. "That," I said, "is the crux. Van Helsing is
simply frantic about it, and I am at my wits' end. I can't even
hazard a guess. There has been a series of little circumstances
which have thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being
properly watched. But these shall not occur again. Here we stay
until all be well, or ill."
Quincey held out his hand. "Count me in," he said. "You and the
Dutchman will tell me what to do, and I'll do it."
When she woke late in the afternoon, Lucy's first movement was
to feel in her breast, and to my surprise, produced the paper which
Van Helsing had given me to read. The careful Professor hadVan Helsing had given me to read. The careful Professor had
replaced it where it had come from, lest on waking she should be
alarmed. Her eyes then lit on Van Helsing and on me too, and
gladdened. Then she looked round the room, and seeing where she
was, shuddered. She gave a loud cry, and put her poor thin hands
before her pale face.
We both understood what was meant, that she had realized to the
full her mother's death. So we tried what we could to comfort her.
Doubtless sympathy eased her somewhat, but she was very low in
thought and spirit, and wept silently and weakly for a long time.
We told her that either or both of us would now remain with her all
the time, and that seemed to comfort her. Towards dusk she fell
into a doze. Here a very odd thing occurred. Whilst still asleep
she took the paper from her breast and tore it in two. Van Helsing
stepped over and took the pieces from her. All the same, however,
she went on with the action of tearing, as though the material were
still in her hands. Finally she lifted her hands and opened them as
though scattering the fragments. Van Helsing seemed surprised, and
his brows gathered as if in thought, but he said nothing.
19 September.—All last night she slept fitfully, being always
afraid to sleep, and something weaker when she woke from it. The
Professor and I took in turns to watch, and we never left her for a
moment unattended. Quincey Morris said nothing about his intention,
but I knew that all night long he patrolled round and round the
house.
When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in
poor Lucy's strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the
little nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good.
At times she slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the
difference in her, between sleeping and waking. Whilst asleep she
looked stronger, although more haggard, and her breathing was
softer. Her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the
teeth, which looked positively longer and sharper than usual. Whenteeth, which looked positively longer and sharper than usual. When
she woke the softness of her eyes evidently changed the expression,
for she looked her own self, although a dying one. In the afternoon
she asked for Arthur, and we telegraphed for him. Quincey went off
to meet him at the station.
When he arrived it was nearly six o'clock, and the sun was
setting full and warm, and the red light streamed in through the
window and gave more color to the pale cheeks. When he saw her,
Arthur was simply choking with emotion, and none of us could speak.
In the hours that had passed, the fits of sleep, or the comatose
condition that passed for it, had grown more frequent, so that the
pauses when conversation was possible were shortened. Arthur's
presence, however, seemed to act as a stimulant. She rallied a
little, and spoke to him more brightly than she had done since we
arrived. He too pulled himself together, and spoke as cheerily as
he could, so that the best was made of everything.
It is now nearly one o'clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting
with her. I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am
entering this on Lucy's phonograph. Until six o'clock they are to
try to rest. I fear that tomorrow will end our watching, for the
shock has been too great. The poor child cannot rally. God help us
all.
LETTER MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA
(Unopened by her)
17 September
My dearest Lucy,
"It seems an age since I heard from you, or indeed since I
wrote. You will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when you have
read all my budget of news. Well, I got my husband back all right.
When we arrived at Exeter there was a carriage waiting for us, and
in it, though he had an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took us to
his house, where there were rooms for us all nice and comfortable,
and we dined together. After dinner Mr. Hawkins said,
" `My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity, and may
every blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and


every blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and
have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make
your home here with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child.
All are gone, and in my will I have left you everything.' I cried,
Lucy dear, as Jonathan and the old man clasped hands. Our evening
was a very, very happy one.
"So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from
both my bedroom and the drawing room I can see the great elms of
the cathedral close, with their great black stems standing out
against the old yellow stone of the cathedral, and I can hear the
rooks overhead cawing and cawing and chattering and chattering and
gossiping all day, after the manner of rooks—and humans. I am busy,
I need not tell you, arranging things and housekeeping. Jonathan
and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day, for now that Jonathan is a
partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the clients.
"How is your dear mother getting on? I wish I could run up to
town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I, dare not go yet,
with so much on my shoulders, and Jonathan wants looking after
still. He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but he
was terribly weakened by the long illness. Even now he sometimes
starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling
until I can coax him back to his usual placidity. However, thank
God, these occasions grow less frequent as the days go on, and they
will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now I have told you
my news, let me ask yours. When are you to be married, and where,
and who is to perform the ceremony, and what are you to wear, and
is it to be a public or private wedding? Tell me all about it,
dear, tell me all about everything, for there is nothing which
interests you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to
send his `respectful duty', but I do not think that is good enough
from the junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker.from the junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker.
And so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all
the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his `love'
instead. Goodbye, my dearest Lucy, and blessings on you." Yours,
Mina Harker
REPORT FROM PATRICK HENNESSEY, MD, MRCSLK, QCPI, ETC, ETC, TO
JOHN SEWARD, MD
20 September
My dear Sir:
"In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the
conditions of everything left in my charge. With regard to patient,
Renfield, there is more to say. He has had another outbreak, which
might have had a dreadful ending, but which, as it fortunately
happened, was unattended with any unhappy results. This afternoon a
carrier's cart with two men made a call at the empty house whose
grounds abut on ours, the house to which, you will remember, the
patient twice ran away. The men stopped at our gate to ask the
porter their way, as they were strangers.
"I was myself looking out of the study window, having a smoke
after dinner, and saw one of them come up to the house. As he
passed the window of Renfield's room, the patient began to rate him
from within, and called him all the foul names he could lay his
tongue to. The man, who seemed a decent fellow enough, contented
himself by telling him to `shut up for a foul-mouthed
beggar',whereon our man accused him of robbing him and wanting to
murder him and said that he would hinder him if he were to swing
for it. I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, so
he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his
mind as to what kind of place he had got to by saying, `Lor' bless
yer, sir, I wouldn't mind what was said to me in a bloomin'
madhouse. I pity ye and the guv'nor for havin' to live in the house
with a wild beast like that.'
"Then he asked his way civilly enough, and I told him where the
gate of the empty house was. He went away followed by threats and
curses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I couldcurses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I could
make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a
well-behaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind
had ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed
and most genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the
incident, but he blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and
led me to believe that he was completely oblivious of the affair.
It was, I am sorry to say, however, only another instance of his
cunning, for within half an hour I heard of him again. This time he
had broken out through the window of his room, and was running down
the avenue. I called to the attendants to follow me, and ran after
him, for I feared he was intent on some mischief. My fear was
justified when I saw the same cart which had passed before coming
down the road, having on it some great wooden boxes. The men were
wiping their foreheads, and were flushed in the face, as if with
violent exercise. Before I could get up to him, the patient rushed
at them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to knock his
head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at the
moment, I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The
other fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with the butt
end of his heavy whip. It was a horrible blow, but he did not seem
to mind it, but seized him also, and struggled with the three of
us, pulling us to and fro as if we were kittens. You know I am no
lightweight, and the others were both burly men. At first he was
silent in his fighting, but as we began to master him, and the
attendants were putting a strait waistcoat on him, he began to
shout, `I'll frustrate them! They shan't rob me!They shan't murder
me by inches! I'll fight for my Lord and Master!'and all sorts of
similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable
difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the
padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken.


padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken.
However, I set it all right, and he is going on well.
"The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions
for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on
us. Their threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect
apology for the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They
said that if it had not been for the way their strength had been
spent in carrying and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they
would have made short work of him. They gave as another reason for
their defeat the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had
been reduced by the dusty nature of their occupation and the
reprehensible distance from the scene of their labors of any place
of public entertainment. I quite understood their drift, and after
a stiff glass of strong grog, or rather more of the same, and with
each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore
that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure
of meeting so `bloomin' good a bloke' as your correspondent. I took
their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are
as follows: Jack Smollet, of Dudding's Rents, King George's Road,
Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley's Row, Guide
Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of Harris
& Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master's Yard,
Soho.
"I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here,
and shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance.
"Believe me, dear Sir,
"Yours faithfully,
"Patrick Hennessey."
LETTER, MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA (Unopened by her)
18 September
"My dearest Lucy,
"Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very
suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come
to so love him that it really seems as though we had lost a father.
I never knew either father or mother, so that the dear old man's
death is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It isdeath is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is
not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear,good man
who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated
him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our
modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but
Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the amount of
responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins
to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps
him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave
shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too
hard that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his, a
nature which enabled him by our dear, good friend's aid to rise
from clerk to master in a few years, should be so injured that the
very essence of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry
you with my troubles in the midst of your own happiness, but Lucy
dear, I must tell someone, for the strain of keeping up a brave and
cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here
that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must do
that day after tomorrow, for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will that
he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there are no
relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner. I shall
try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few minutes.
Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings,
"Your loving
Mina Harker" DR. SEWARD' DIARY
20 September.—Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry
tonight. I am too miserable, too low spirited, too sick of the
world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care
if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of
death. And he has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of
late, Lucy's mother and Arthur's father, and now … Let me get
on with my work.
I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wantedon with my work.
I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wanted
Arthur to go to rest also, but he refused at first. It was only
when I told him that we should want him to help us during the day,
and that we must not all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy
should suffer, that he agreed to go.
Van Helsing was very kind to him. "Come, my child," he said.
"Come with me. You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and
much mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know
of. You must not be alone, for to be alone is to be full of fears
and alarms. Come to the drawing room, where there is a big fire,
and there are two sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other,
and our sympathy will be comfort to each other, even though we do
not speak, and even if we sleep."
Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucy's
face, which lay in her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn. She lay
quite still, and I looked around the room to see that all was as it
should be. I could see that the Professor had carried out in this
room, as in the other, his purpose of using the garlic. The whole
of the window sashes reeked with it, and round Lucy's neck, over
the silk handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a
rough chaplet of the same odorous flowers.
Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at
its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in
the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had
been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the
canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest.
I sat down beside her, and presently she moved uneasily. At the
same moment there came a sort of dull flapping or buffeting at the
window. I went over to it softly, and peeped out by the corner of
the blind. There was a full moonlight, and I could see that the
noise was made by a great bat, which wheeled around, doubtless
attracted by the light, although so dim, and every now and again


attracted by the light, although so dim, and every now and again
struck the window with its wings. When I came back to my seat, I
found that Lucy had moved slightly, and had torn away the garlic
flowers from her throat. I replaced them as well as I could, and
sat watching her.
Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had
prescribed. She took but a little, and that languidly. There did
not seem to be with her now the unconscious struggle for life and
strength that had hitherto so marked her illness. It struck me as
curious that the moment she became conscious she pressed the garlic
flowers close to her. It was certainly odd that whenever she got
into that lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put
the flowers from her, but that when she waked she clutched them
close, There was no possibility of making amy mistake about this,
for in the long hours that followed, she had many spells of
sleeping and waking and repeated both actions many times.
At six o'clock Van Helsing came to relieve me. Arthur had then
fallen into a doze, and he mercifully let him sleep on. When he saw
Lucy's face I could hear the sissing indraw of breath, and he said
to me in a sharp whisper."Draw up the blind. I want light!" Then he
bent down, and, with his face almost touching Lucy's, examined her
carefully. He removed the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief
from her throat. As he did so he started back and I could hear his
ejaculation, "Mein Gott!" as it was smothered in his throat. I bent
over and looked, too, and as I noticed some queer chill came over
me. The wounds on the throat had absolutely disappeared.
For fully five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with
his face at its sternest. Then he turned to me and said calmly,
"She is dying. It will not be long now. It will be much difference,
mark me, whether she dies conscious or in her sleep. Wake that poor
boy, and let him come and see the last. He trusts us, and we have
promised him."
I went to the dining room and waked him. He was dazed for apromised him."
I went to the dining room and waked him. He was dazed for a
moment, but when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the edges
of the shutters he thought he was late, and expressed his fear. I
assured him that Lucy was still asleep, but told him as gently as i
could that both Van Helsing and I feared that the end was near. He
covered his face with his hands, and slid down on his knees by the
sofa, where he remained, perhaps a minute, with his head buried,
praying, whilst his shoulders shook with grief. I took him by the
hand and raised him up. "Come," I said, "my dear old fellow, summon
all your fortitude. It will be best and easiest for her."
When we came into Lucy's room I could see that Van Helsing had,
with his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and
making everything look as pleasing as possible. He had even brushed
Lucy's hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny
ripples. When we came into the room she opened her eyes, and seeing
him, whispered softly, "Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have
come!"
He was stooping to kiss her, when Van Helsing motioned him back.
"No," he whispered, "not yet! Hold her hand, it will comfort her
more."
So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her, and she looked her
best, with all the soft lines matching the angelic beauty of her
eyes. Then gradually her eyes closed, and she sank to sleep. For a
little bit her breast heaved softly, and her breath came and went
like a tired child's.
And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had
noticed in the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth
opened, and the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer
and sharper than ever. In a sort of sleepwaking, vague, unconscious
way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and
said in a soft,voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her
lips, "Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss
me!"
Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her, but at that instant Vanme!"
Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her, but at that instant Van
Helsing, who, like me, had been startled by her voice, swooped upon
him, and catching him by the neck with both hands, dragged him back
with a fury of strength which I never thought he could have
possessed, and actually hurled him almost across the room. "Not on
your life!" he said, "not for your living soul and hers!" And he
stood between them like a lion at bay.
Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment know what
to do or say, and before any impulse of violence could seize him he
realized the place and the occasion, and stood silent, waiting.
I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a
spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face. The sharp teeth
clamped together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed
heavily.
Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness,
and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing's great
brown one, drawing it close to her, she kissed it. "My true
friend," she said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos,
"My true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace!"
"I swear it!" he said solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding
up his hand, as one who registers an oath. Then he turned to
Arthur, and said to him, "Come, my child, take her hand in yours,
and kiss her on the forehead, and only once."
Their eyes met instead of their lips, and so they parted. Lucy's
eyes closed, and Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took
Arthur's arm, and drew him away.
And then Lucy's breathing became stertorous again, and all at
once it ceased.
"It is all over," said Van Helsing. "She is dead!"
I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the drawing room,
where he sat down, and covered his face with his hands, sobbing in
a way that nearly broke me down to see.
I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking at poor
Lucy, and his face was sterner than eve. Some change had come over
her body. Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow andher body. Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and
cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines. Even the lips had
lost their deadly pallor. It was as if the blood, no longer needed
for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of
death as little rude as might be.
"We thought her dying whilst she slept, And sleeping when she
died."
I stood beside Van Helsing, and said, "Ah well, poor girl, there
is peace for her at last. It is the end!"
He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity,"Not so, alas!
Not so. It is only the beginning!"
When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and
answered, "We can do nothing as yet. Wait and see."


The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that
Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the
ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his
staff was afflicted, or blessed, with something of his own
obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last offices
for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential,
brother-professional way, when she had come out from the death
chamber,
"She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It's quite a privilege
to attend on her. It's not too much to say that she will do credit
to our establishment!"
I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away. This was
possible from the disordered state of things in the household.
There were no relatives at hand, and as Arthur had to be back the
next day to attend at his father's funeral, we were unable to
notify any one who should have been bidden. Under the
circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it upon ourselves to examine
papers, etc. He insisted upon looking over Lucy's papers himself. I
asked him why, for I feared that he, being a foreigner, might not
be quite aware of English legal requirements, and so might in
ignorance make some unnecessary trouble.
He answered me, "I know, I know. You forget that I am a lawyer
as well as a doctor. But this is not altogether for the law. You
knew that, when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to
avoid. There may be papers more, such as this."
As he spoke he took from his pocket book the memorandum which
had been in Lucy's breast, and which she had torn in her sleep.
"When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late
Mrs. Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him tonight. For me,
I watch here in the room and in Miss Lucy's old room all night, and
I myself search for what may be. It is not well that her very
thoughts go into the hands of strangers."
I went on with my part of the work, and in another half hour had
found the name and address of Mrs. Westenra's solicitor and hadfound the name and address of Mrs. Westenra's solicitor and had
written to him. All the poor lady's papers were in order. Explicit
directions regarding the place of burial were given. I had hardly
sealed the letter, when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into
the room, saying,
"Can I help you friend John? I am free, and if I may, my service
is to you."
"Have you got what you looked for?" I asked.
To which he replied, "I did not look for any specific thing. I
only hoped to find, and find I have, all that there was, only some
letters and a few memoranda, and a diary new begun. But I have them
here, and we shall for the present say nothing of them. I shall see
that poor lad tomorrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use
some."
When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me, "And now,
friend John, I think we may to bed. We want sleep, both you and I,
and rest to recuperate. Tomorrow we shall have much to do, but for
the tonight there is no need of us. Alas!"
Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker
had certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a
small chapelle ardente. There was a wilderness of beautiful white
flowers, and death was made as little repulsive as might be. The
end of the winding sheet was laid over the face. When the Professor
bent over and turned it gently back, we both started at the beauty
before us. The tall wax candles showing a sufficient light to note
it well. All Lucy's loveliness had come back to her in death, and
the hours that had passed, instead of leaving traces of `decay's
effacing fingers', had but restored the beauty of life, till
positively I could not believe my eyes that I was looking at a
corpse.
The Professor looked sternly grave. He had not loved her as I
had, and there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me,
"Remain till I return," and left the room. He came back with a
handful of wild garlic from the box waiting in the hall, but which
had not been opened, and placed the flowers amongst the others onhad not been opened, and placed the flowers amongst the others on
and around the bed. Then he took from his neck, inside his collar,
a little gold crucifix, and placed it over the mouth. He restored
the sheet to its place, and we came away.
I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap at
the door, he entered, and at once began to speak.
"Tomorrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of
post-mortem knives."
"Must we make an autopsy?" I asked.
"Yes and no. I want to operate, but not what you think. Let me
tell you now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head
and take out her heart. Ah! You a surgeon, and so shocked! You,
whom I have seen with no tremble of hand or heart, do operations of
life and death that make the rest shudder. Oh, but I must not
forget, my dear friend John, that you loved her, and I have not
forgotten it for is I that shall operate, and you must not help. I
would like to do it tonight, but for Arthur I must not. He will be
free after his father's funeral tomorrow, and he will want to see
her, to see it. Then, when she is coffined ready for the next day,
you and I shall come when all sleep. We shall unscrew the coffin
lid, and shall do our operation, and then replace all, so that none
know, save we alone."
"But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor
body without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem
and nothing to gain by it, no good to her, to us, to science, to
human knowledge, why do it? Without such it is monstrous."
For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with
infinite tenderness, "Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart,
and I love you the more because it does so bleed. If I could, I
would take on myself the burden that you do bear. But there are
things that you know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for
knowing, though they are not pleasant things. John, my child, you
have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to


have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to
do any without good cause? I may err, I am but man, but I believe
in all I do. Was it not for these causes that you send for me when
the great trouble came? Yes! Were you not amazed, nay horrified,
when I would not let Arthur kiss his love, though she was dying,
and snatched him away by all my strength? Yes! And yet you saw how
she thanked me, with her so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too,
so weak, and she kiss my rough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did
you not hear me swear promise to her, that so she closed her eyes
grateful? Yes!
"Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. You have for
many years trust me. You have believe me weeks past, when there be
things so strange that you might have well doubt. Believe me yet a
little, friend John. If you trust me not, then I must tell what I
think, and that is not perhaps well. And if I work, as work I
shall, no matter trust or no trust, without my friend trust in me,
I work with heavy heart and feel, oh so lonely when I want all help
and courage that may be!" He paused a moment and went on solemnly,
"Friend John, there are strange and terrible days before us. Let us
not be two, but one, that so we work to a good end. Will you not
have faith in me?"
I took his hand, and promised him. I held my door open as he
went away, and watched him go to his room and close the door. As I
stood without moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along
the passage, she had her back to me, so did not see me, and go into
the room where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare,
and we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we
love. Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she
naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the
mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely
till laid to eternal rest.
I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight
when Van Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came over towhen Van Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came over to
my bedside and said, "You need not trouble about the knives. We
shall not do it."
"Why not?" I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had
greatly impressed me.
"Because," he said sternly, "it is too late, or too early. See!"
Here he held up the little golden crucifix.
"This was stolen in the night."
"How stolen,"I asked in wonder,"since you have it now?"
"Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it,
from the woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her punishment
will surely come, but not through me. She knew not altogether what
she did, and thus unknowing, she only stole. Now we must wait." He
went away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to think of, a
new puzzle to grapple with.
The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came,
Mr. Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand & Lidderdale. He was
very genial and very appreciative of what we had done, and took off
our hands all cares as to details. During lunch he told us that
Mrs. Westenra had for some time expected sudden death from her
heart, and had put her affairs in absolute order. He informed us
that, with the exception of a certain entailed property of Lucy's
father which now, in default of direct issue, went back to a
distant branch of the family, the whole estate, real and personal,
was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood. When he had told us so much
he went on,
"Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary
disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave
her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should be to
act regarding a matrimonial alliance. Indeed, we pressed the matter
so far that we almost came into collision, for she asked us if we
were or were not prepared to carry out her wishes. Of course, we
had then no alternative but to accept. We were right in principle,
and ninety-nine times out of a hundred we should have proved, by
the logic of events, the accuracy of our judgment.the logic of events, the accuracy of our judgment.
"Frankly, however, I must admit that in this case any other form
of disposition would have rendered impossible the carrying out of
her wishes. For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would
have come into possession of the property, and, even had she only
survived her mother by five minutes, her property would, in case
there were no will, and a will was a practical impossibility in
such a case, have been treated at her decease as under intestacy.
In which case Lord Godalming, though so dear a friend, would have
had no claim in the world. And the inheritors, being remote, would
not be likely to abandon their just rights, for sentimental reasons
regarding an entire stranger. I assure you, my dear sirs, I am
rejoiced at the result,perfectly rejoiced."
He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little part,
in which he was officially interested, of so great a tragedy, was
an object-lesson in the limitations of sympathetic
understanding.
He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the
day and see Lord Godalming. His coming, however, had been a certain
comfort to us, since it assured us that we should not have to dread
hostile criticism as to any of our acts. Arthur was expected at
five o'clock, so a little before that time we visited the death
chamber. It was so in very truth, for now both mother and daughter
lay in it. The undertaker, true to his craft, had made the best
display he could of his goods, and there was a mortuary air about
the place that lowered our spirits at once.
Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to,
explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it would
be less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of his
fiancee quite alone.
The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity and exerted
himself to restore things to the condition in which we left them
the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his
feelings as we could avoid were saved.


feelings as we could avoid were saved.
Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken. Even his
stalwart manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of
his much-tried emotions. He had, I knew, been very genuinely and
devotedly attached to his father, and to lose him, and at such a
time, was a bitter blow to him. With me he was warm as ever, and to
Van Helsing he was sweetly courteous. But I could not help seeing
that there was some constraint with him. The professor noticed it
too, and motioned me to bring him upstairs. I did so, and left him
at the door of the room, as I felt he would like to be quite alone
with her, but he took my arm and led me in, saying huskily,
"You loved her too, old fellow. She told me all about it, and
there was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I
don't know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I can't
think yet … "
Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my
shoulders and laid his head on my breast, crying, "Oh, Jack! Jack!
What shall I do? The whole of life seems gone from me all at once,
and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for."
I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not
need much expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm
over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy
dear to a man's heart. I stood still and silent till his sobs died
away, and then I said softly to him, "Come and look at her."
Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from
her face. God! How beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be
enhancing her loveliness. It frightened and amazed me somewhat. And
as for Arthur, he fell to trembling, and finally was shaken with
doubt as with an ague. At last, after a long pause, he said to me
in a faint whisper,"Jack, is she really dead?"
I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggest, for
I felt that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a moment
longer than I could help, that it often happened that after deathlonger than I could help, that it often happened that after death
faces become softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty,
that this was especially so when death had been preceded by any
acute or prolonged suffering. I seemed to quite do away with any
doubt, and after kneeling beside the couch for a while and looking
at her lovingly and long, he turned aside. I told him that that
must be goodbye, as the coffin had to be prepared, so he went back
and took her dead hand in his and kissed it, and bent over and
kissed her forehead. He came away, fondly looking back over his
shoulder at her as he came.
I left him in the drawing room, and told Van Helsing that he had
said goodbye, so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the
undertaker's men to proceed with the preperations and to screw up
the coffin. When he came out of the room again I told him of
Arthur's question, and he replied, "I am not surprised. Just now I
doubted for a moment myself!"
We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying
to make the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all dinner
time, but when we had lit our cigars he said, "Lord … , but
Arthur interrupted him.
"No, no, not that, for God's sake! Not yet at any rate. Forgive
me, sir. I did not mean to speak offensively. It is only because my
loss is so recent."
The Professor answered very sweetly, "I only used that name
because I was in doubt. I must not call you `Mr.' and I have grown
to love you, yes, my dear boy, to love you, as Arthur."
Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man's warmly. "Call
me what you will," he said. "I hope I may always have the title of
a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you
for your goodness to my poor dear." He paused a moment, and went
on, "I know that she understood your goodness even better than I
do. And if I was rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted
so, you remember,"— the Professor nodded—"You must forgive me."
He answered with a grave kindness, "I know it was hard for youHe answered with a grave kindness, "I know it was hard for you
to quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to
understand, and I take it that you do not, that you cannot, trust
me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be more times
when I shall want you to trust when you cannot, and may not, and
must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust
shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as
though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me
from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others,
and for her dear sake to whom I swore to protect."
"And indeed, indeed, sir," said Arthur warmly. "I shall in all
ways trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and
you are Jack's friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you
like."
The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though
about to speak, and finally said, "May I ask you something
now?"
"Certainly."
"You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?"
"No, poor dear. I never thought of it."
"And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you
will. I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy's
papers and letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a
motive of which, be sure, she would have approved. I have them all
here. I took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no
strange hand might touch them, no strange eye look through words
into her soul. I shall keep them, if I may. Even you may not see
them yet, but I shall keep them safe. No word shall be lost, and in
the good time I shall give them back to you. It is a hard thing
that I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for Lucy's sake?"
Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self, "Dr. Van Helsing,
you may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I am doing
what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you with
questions till the time comes."
The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly,"And you are


questions till the time comes."
The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly,"And you are
right. There will be pain for us all, but it will not be all pain,
nor will this pain be the last. We and you too, you most of all,
dear boy, will have to pass through the bitter water before we
reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and
do our duty, and all will be well!"
I slept on a sofa in Arthur's room that night. Van Helsing did
not go to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patroling the
house, and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her
coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent through the
odor of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the
night.
MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL
22 September.—In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping. It
seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much
between then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away
and no news of him, and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a
solicitor, a partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins
dead and buried, and Jonathan with another attack that may harm
him. Some day he may ask me about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty
in my shorthand, see what unexpected prosperity does for us, so it
may be as well to freshen it up again with an exercise anyhow.
The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only
ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his
from Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir
John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society.
Jonathan and I stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best and
dearest friend was gone from us.
We came back to town quietly, taking a bus to Hyde Park Corner.
Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a
while, so we sat down. But there were very few people there, and it
was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made
us think of the empty chair at home. So we got up and walked downus think of the empty chair at home. So we got up and walked down
Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to
in the old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper,
for you can't go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum
to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a
bit. But it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn't know
anybody who saw us, and we didn't care if they did, so on we
walked. I was looking at a very beautiful girl, in a big cart-wheel
hat, sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano's, when I felt Jonathan
clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said under his
breath, "My God!"
I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I fear that some nervous
fit may upset him again. So I turned to him quickly, and asked him
what it was that disturbed him.
He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in
terror and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a
beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also
observing the pretty girl. He was looking at her so hard that he
did not see either of us, and so I had a good view of him. His face
was not a good face. It was hard, and cruel, and sensual,and big
white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so
red, were pointed like an animal's. Jonathan kept staring at him,
till I was afraid he would notice. I feared he might take it ill,
he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked Jonathan why he was
disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that I knew as much
about it as he did, "Do you see who it is?"
"No, dear," I said. "I don't know him, who is it?" His answer
seemed to shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not
know that it was me, Mina, to whom he was speaking. "It is the man
himself!"
The poor dear was evidently terrified at something, very greatly
terrified. I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to
support him he would have sunk down. He kept staring. A man camesupport him he would have sunk down. He kept staring. A man came
out of the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who
then drove off. Th e dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when
the carriage moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction,
and hailed a hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as
if to himself,
"I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if
this be so! Oh, my God! My God! If only I knew! If only I knew!" He
was distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on
the subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent. I
drew away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily. We walked a
little further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green
Park. It was a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat
in a shady place. After a few minutes' staring at nothing,
Jonathan's eyes closed, and he went quickly into a sleep, with his
head on my shoulder. I thought it was the best thing for him, so
did not disturb him. In about twenty minutes he woke up, and said
to me quite cheerfully,
"Why, Mina, have I been asleep! Oh, do forgive me for being so
rude. Come, and we'll have a cup of tea somewhere."
He had evidently forgotten all about the dark stranger, as in
his illness he had forgotten all that this episode had reminded him
of. I don't like this lapsing into forgetfulness. It may make or
continue some injury to the brain. I must not ask him, for fear I
shall do more harm than good, but I must somehow learn the facts of
his journey abroad. The time is come, I fear, when I must open the
parcel, and know what is written. Oh, Jonathan, you will, I know,
forgive me if I do wrong, but it is for your own dear sake.
Later.—A sad home-coming in every way, the house empty of the
dear soul who was so good to us. Jonathan still pale and dizzy
under a slight relapse of his malady, and now a telegram from Van
Helsing, whoever he may be. "You will be grieved to hear that Mrs.


Helsing, whoever he may be. "You will be grieved to hear that Mrs.
Westenra died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before
yesterday. They were both buried today."
Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra!
Poor Lucy! Gone, gone, never to return to us! And poor, poor
Arthur, to have lost such a sweetness out of his life! God help us
all to bear our troubles.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY-CONT.
22 September.—It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring, and
has taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow is Quincey! I
believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy's
death as any of us, but he bore himself through it like a moral
Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a
power in the world indeed. Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest
preparatory to his journey. He goes to Amsterdam tonight, but says
he returns tomorrow night, that he only wants to make some
arrangements which can only be made personally. He is to stop with
me then, if he can. He says he has work to do in London which may
take him some time. Poor old fellow! I fear that the strain of the
past week has broken down even his iron strength. All the time of
the burial he was, I could see, putting some terrible restraint on
himself. When it was all over, we were standing beside Arthur, who,
poor fellow, was speaking of his part in the operation where his
blood had been transfused to his Lucy's veins. I could see Van
Helsing's face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was saying
that he felt since then as if they two had been really married, and
that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word
of the other operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and
Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I
came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way
to a regular fit of hysterics. He has denied to me since that it
was hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humorwas hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humor
asserting itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he
cried, and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us
and misjudge. And then he cried, till he laughed again, and laughed
and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with
him, as one is to a woman under the circumstances, but it had no
effect. Men and women are so different in manifestations of nervous
strength or weakness! Then when his face grew grave and stern again
I asked him why his mirth, and why at such a time. His reply was in
a way characteristic of him, for it was logical and forceful and
mysterious. He said,
"Ah, you don't comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am
not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did
choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the
laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter
who knock at your door and say, `May I come in?' is not true
laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He
ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, `I am
here.' Behold, in example I grieve my heart out for that so sweet
young girl. I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn. I
give my time, my skill, my sleep. I let my other sufferers want
that she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very grave, laugh
when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and
say `Thud, thud!' to my heart, till it send back the blood from my
cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boy, that dear boy, so of the
age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with
his hair and eyes the same.
"There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when he say
things that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and make my
father-heart yearn to him as to no other man, not even you, friend
John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son, yet
even at such a moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and belloweven at such a moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow
in my ear,`Here I am! Here I am!' till the blood come dance back
and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek.
Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full
of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come,
he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and
dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all
dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth
of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and
kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain
that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on
the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too
great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and
he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor,
what it may be."
I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea,
but as I did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, I asked
him. As he answered me his face grew stern, and he said in quite a
different tone,
"Oh, it was the grim irony of it all,this so lovely lady
garlanded with flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by
one we wondered if she were truly dead, she laid in that so fine
marble house in that lonely churchyard, where rest so many of her
kin, laid there with the mother who loved her, and whom she loved,
and that sacred bell going "Toll! Toll! Toll!' so sad and slow, and
those holy men, with the white garments of the angel, pretending to
read books, and yet all the time their eyes never on the page, and
all of us with the bowed head. And all for what? She is dead, so!
Is it not?"
"Well, for the life of me, Professor," I said, "I can't see
anything to laugh at in all that. Why, your expression makes it a
harder puzzle than before. But even if the burial service was
comic, what about poor Art and his trouble? Why his heart was
simply breaking."


comic, what about poor Art and his trouble? Why his heart was
simply breaking."
"Just so. Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her
veins had made her truly his bride?"
"Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him."
"Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that,
then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a
polyandrist, and me,with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by
Church's law, though no wits, all gone, even I, who am faithful
husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist."
"I don't see where the joke comes in there either!" I said, and
I did not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such
things. He laid his hand on my arm, and said,
"Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to
others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I
can trust. If you could have looked into my heart then when I want
to laugh, if you could have done so when the laugh arrived, if you
could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all
that is to him, for he go far, far away from me, and for a long,
long time, maybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all."
I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why.
"Because I know!"
And now we are all scattered, and for many a long day loneliness
will sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in the tomb
of her kin, a lordly death house in a lonely churchyard, away from
teeming London, where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over
Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own
accord.
So I can finish this diary, and God only knows if I shall ever
begin another. If I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to
deal with different people and different themes, for here at the
end, where the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up
the thread of my life-work, I say sadly and without hope,
"FINIS".
THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY
The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised withThe neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with
a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of
what was known to the writers of headlines and "The Kensington
Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During
the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young
children straying from home or neglecting to return from their
playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too
young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but
the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a
"bloofer lady." It has always been late in the evening when they
have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been
found until early in the following morning. It is generally
supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave
as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to
come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as
occasion served. This is the more natural as the favorite game of
the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A
correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots
pretending to be the "bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our
caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of
grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in
accordance with general principles of human nature that the
"bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco
performances. Our correspondent naively says that even Ellen Terry
could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced
little children pretend, and even imagine themselves, to be.
There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for
some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night,
have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem
such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not
much importance individually, would tend to show that whatevermuch importance individually, would tend to show that whatever
animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own. The police
of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for
straying children, especially when very young, in and around
Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about.
THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER EXTRA SPECIAL
THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR
ANOTHER CHILD INJURED
THE "BLOOFER LADY"
We have just received intelligence that another child, missed
last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze
bush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is
perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny
wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was
terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially
restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the
"bloofer lady".23 September.—Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad
that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the
terrible things, and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed
down with the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would
be true to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan
rising to the height of his advancement and keeping pace in all
ways with the duties that come upon him. He will be away all day
till late, for he said he could not lunch at home. My household
work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, and lock myself
up in my room and read it.
24 September.—I hadn't the heart to write last night, that
terrible record of Jonathan's upset me so. Poor dear! How he must
have suffered, whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if
there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and
then write all those terrible things, or had he some cause for it
all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject
to him. And yet that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain
of him, poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and
sent his mind back on some train of thought.
He believes it all himself. I remember how on our wedding day he
said "Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter
hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane … " There seems to be
through it all some thread of continuity. That fearful Count was
coming to London. If it should be, and he came to London, with its
teeming millions … There may be a solemn duty, and if it come
we must not shrink from it. I shall be prepared. I shall get my
typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be
ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted, then,
perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can
speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at
all. If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want
to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out


to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out
things, and see how I may comfort him.
LETTER, VAN HELSING TO MRS. HARKER
24 September
(Confidence)
"Dear Madam,
"I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as
that I sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra's death. By the
kindness of Lord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and
papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally
important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how
great friends you were and how you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by
that love, I implore you, help me. It is for others' good that I
ask, to redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible
troubles, that may be more great than you can know. May it be that
I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. John Seward and of
Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it
private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see
you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and
when. I implore your pardon, Madam. I have read your letters to
poor Lucy, and know how good you are and how your husband suffer.
So I pray you, if it may be, enlighten him not, least it may harm.
Again your pardon, and forgive me.
"VAN HELSING"
TELEGRAM, MRS. HARKER TO VAN HELSING
25 September.—Come today by quarter past ten train if you can
catch it. Can see you any time you call. "WILHELMINA HARKER"
MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL
25 September.—I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time
draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect
that it will throw some light upon Jonathan's sad experience, and
as he attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me
all about her. That is the reason of his coming. It is concerning
Lucy and her sleepwalking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall
never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal
gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of
its own color. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back toits own color. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to
the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her
ill. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was
afterwards. She must have told him of her sleep-walking adventure
on the cliff, and that I knew all about it, and now he wants me to
tell him what I know, so that he may understand. I hope I did right
in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra. I should never
forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one,
brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope too, Dr. Van Helsing will
not blame me. I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I
feel I cannot bear more just at present.
I suppose a cry does us all good at times, clears the air as
other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that
upset me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away
from me a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted
since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of
himself, and that nothing will occur to upset him. It is two
o'clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing
of Jonathan's journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have
typewritten out my own journal, so that, in case he asks about
Lucy, I can hand it to him. It will save much questioning.
Later.—He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how
it all makes my head whirl round. I feel like one in a dream. Can
it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read
Jonathan's journal first, I should never have accepted even a
possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered.
Please the good God, all this may not upset him again. I shall try
to save him from it. But it may be even a consolation and a help to
him, terrible though it be and awful in its consequences, to know
for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him,
and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which
haunts him, that when the doubt is removed, no matter which, wakinghaunts him, that when the doubt is removed, no matter which, waking
or dreaming, may prove the truth, he will be more satisfied and
better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man
as well as a clever one if he is Arthur's friend and Dr. Seward's,
and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after
Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he is good and kind and of a
noble nature. When he comes tomorrow I shall ask him about
Jonathan. And then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may
lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practice
interviewing. Jonathan's friend on "The Exeter News" told him that
memory is everything in such work, that you must be able to put
down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine
some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview. I shall try to
record it verbatim.
It was half-past two o'clock when the knock came. I took my
courage a deux mains and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the
door, and announced "Dr. Van Helsing".
I rose and bowed, and he came towards me, a man of medium
weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad,
deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on
the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of
thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large
behind the ears. The face, cleanshaven, shows a hard, square chin,
a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight,
but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big
bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad
and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back
above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the
reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally
back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart,
and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods. He said to
me,
"Mrs. Harker, is it not?" I bowed assent.
"That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented.


me,
"Mrs. Harker, is it not?" I bowed assent.
"That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented.
"It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that
poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the
dead that I come."
"Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim on me than that
you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra."And I held out my
hand. He took it and said tenderly,
"Oh, Madam Mina, I know that the friend of that poor little girl
must be good, but I had yet to learn … " He finished his
speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted
to see me about, so he at once began.
"I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to
begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that
you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary, you need
not look surprised, Madam Mina. It was begun after you had left,
and was an imitation of you, and in that diary she traces by
inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down
that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask
you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can
remember."
"I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it."
"Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not
always so with young ladies."
"No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it
to you if you like."
"Oh, Madam Mina, I well be grateful. You will do me much
favor."
I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit, I
suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still
in our mouths, so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with
a grateful bow, and said, "May I read it?"
"If you wish," I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it,
and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed.
"Oh, you so clever woman!" he said. "I knew long that Mr.
Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness, but see, his wife have all
the good things. And will you not so much honor me and so help methe good things. And will you not so much honor me and so help me
as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand."
By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed.
So I took the typewritten copy from my work basket and handed it to
him.
"Forgive me," I said. "I could not help it, but I had been
thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so
that you might not have time to wait, not on my account, but
because I know your time must be precious, I have written it out on
the typewriter for you."
He took it and his eyes glistened. "You are so good," he said.
"And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I
have read."
"By all means," I said. "read it over whilst I order lunch, and
then you can ask me questions whilst we eat."
He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the
light, and became so absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see
after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I
came back, I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his
face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by
both hands.
"Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "how can I say what I owe to you?
This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am dazed, I
am dazzled, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the
light every time. But that you do not, cannot comprehend. Oh, but I
am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madame," he said this very
solemnly, "if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or
yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and
delight if I may serve you as a friend, as a friend, but all I have
ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you
love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights. You are
one of the lights. You will have a happy life and a good life, and
your husband will be blessed in you."
"But, doctor, you praise me too much, and you do not know
me."
"Not know you, I, who am old, and who have studied all my lifeme."
"Not know you, I, who am old, and who have studied all my life
men and women, I who have made my specialty the brain and all that
belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your
diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes
out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to
poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam
Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and
by minute, such things that angels can read. And we men who wish to
know have in us something of angels' eyes. Your husband is noble
nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be
where there is mean nature. And your husband, tell me of him. Is he
quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and
hearty?"
I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said,"He
was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins
death."
He interrupted, "Oh, yes. I know. I know. I have read your last
two letters."
I went on, "I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town
on Thursday last he had a sort of shock."
"A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That is not good. What
kind of shock was it?"
"He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible,
something which led to his brain fever." And here the whole thing
seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror
which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and
the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a
tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees
and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband
well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on
the sofa, and sat by me. He held my hand in his, and said to me
with, oh, such infinite sweetness,
"My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I
have not had much time for friendships, but since I have been
summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good


summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good
people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever, and it
has grown with my advancing years, the loneliness of my life.
Believe me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you
have given me hope, hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that
there are good women still left to make life happy, good women,
whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children
that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to
you. For if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my
study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do all for
him that I can, all to make his life strong and manly, and your
life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are over-wrought and
perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so
pale, and what he like not where he love, is not to his good.
Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me
about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress.
I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think much over what
you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions,
if I may. And then too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's
trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now,
afterwards you shall tell me all."
After lunch, when we went back to the drawing room, he said to
me, "And now tell me all about him."
When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to
fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman,
that journal is all so strange, and I hesitated to go on. But he
was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted
him, so I said,
"Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you
must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday
in a sort of fever of doubt. You must be kind to me, and not think
me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange
things."
He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said,things."
He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said,
"Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding
which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to
think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be.
I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary
things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the
extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad
or sane."
"Thank you, thank you a thousand times! You have taken a weight
off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read.
It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my
trouble and Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad,
and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it. You will read
for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will
be very kind and tell me what you think."
"I promise," he said as I gave him the papers. "I shall in the
morning, as soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I
may."
"Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to
lunch with us and see him then. You could catch the quick 3:34
train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight." He was
surprised at my knowledge of the trains offhand, but he does not
know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that
I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry.
So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here
thinking, thinking I don't know what.
LETTER (by hand), VAN HELSING TO MRS. HARKER
25 September, 6 o'clock
"Dear Madam Mina,
"I have read your husband's so wonderful diary. You may sleep
without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is true! I will
pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others, but for him and
you there is no dread. He is a noble fellow, and let me tell you
from experience of men, that one who would do as he did in going
down that wall and to that room, aye, and going a second time, isdown that wall and to that room, aye, and going a second time, is
not one to be injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his
heart are all right, this I swear, before I have even seen him, so
be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other things. I am
blessed that today I come to see you, for I have learn all at once
so much that again I am dazzled, dazzled more than ever, and I must
think.
"Yours the most faithful,
"Abraham Van Helsing."
LETTER, MRS. HARKER TO VAN HELSING
25 September, 6:30 p. m.
"My dear Dr. Van Helsing,
"A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great
weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things
there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that
monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment,
whilst writing, had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by
the 6:25 tonight from Launceston and will be here at 10:18,so that
I shall have no fear tonight. Will you, therefore, instead of
lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight o'clock, if
this be not too early for you? You can get away, if you are in a
hurry, by the 10:30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by
2:35. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not
hear, you will come to breakfast.
"Believe me,
"Your faithful and grateful friend,
"Mina Harker."
JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL
26 September.—I thought never to write in this diary again, but
the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper
ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit,
and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how
anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor's letter
that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of
me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that
knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful.
But, now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has
succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and


succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and
it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the
man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what
Mina says. We sat late, and talked it over. Mina is dressing, and I
shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over.
He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room
whee he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and
turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp
scrutiny,
"But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a
shock."
It was so funny to hear my wife called `Madam Mina' by this
kindly, strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said, "I was ill, I
have had a shock, but you have cured me already."
"And how?"
"By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then
everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to
trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to
trust, I did not know what to do, and so had only to keep on
working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove
ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don't know
what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't, you
couldn't with eyebrows like yours."
He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said, "So! You are a
physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much
pleasure coming to you to breakfast, and, oh, sir, you will pardon
praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife."
I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply
nodded and stood silent.
"She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us
men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and
that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble,
so little an egoist, and that, let me tell you, is much in this
age, so sceptical and selfish. And you, sir… I have read all the
letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I knowletters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know
you since some days from the knowing of others, but I have seen
your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will
you not? And let us be friends for all our lives."
We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made
me quite choky.
"and now," he said, "may I ask you for some more help? I have a
great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help
me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to
Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different
kind, but at first this will do."
"Look here, Sir," I said, "does what you have to do concern the
Count?"
"It does," he said solemnly."
"Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10:30
train, you will not have time to read them, but I shall get the
bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the
train."
After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting
he said, "Perhaps you will come to town if I send for you, and take
Madam Mina too."
"We shall both come when you will," I said.
I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the
previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window,
waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eyes
suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, "The Westminster
Gazette", I knew it by the color, and he grew quite white. He read
something intently, groaning to himself, "Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So
soon! So soon!" I do not think he remembered me at the moment. Just
then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled him
to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand,
calling out, "Love to Madam Mina. I shall write so soon as ever I
can."
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
26 September.—Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a
week since I said "Finis," and yet here I am starting fresh again,
or rather going on with the record. Until this afternoon I had no
cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to allcause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all
intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his
fly business, and he had just started in the spider line also, so
he had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur,
written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up
wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a
help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincey
wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning
to recover something of his old buoyancy, so as to them all my mind
is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the
enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have
said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming
cicatrised.
Everything is, however, now reopened, and what is to be the end
God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows,
too, but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity.
He went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. Today he
came back, and almost bounded into the room at about half-past five
o'clock, and thrust last night's "Westminster Gazette" into my
hand.
"What do you think of that?" he asked as he stood back and
folded his arms.
I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he
meant, but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about
children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to
me, until I reached a passage where it described small puncture
wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up.
"Well?" he said.
"It is like poor Lucy's."
"And what do you make of it?"
"Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that
injured her has injured them." I did not quite understand his
answer.
"That is true indirectly, but not directly."
"How do you mean, Professor?" I asked. I was a little inclined
to take his seriousness lightly, for, after all, four days of rest
and freedom from burning, harrowing, anxiety does help to restore


and freedom from burning, harrowing, anxiety does help to restore
one's spirits, but when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even
in the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more
stern.
"Tell me!" I said. "I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what
to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture."
"Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion
as to what poor Lucy died of, not after all the hints given, not
only by events, but by me?"
"Of nervous prostration following a great loss or waste of
blood."
"And how was the blood lost or wasted?" I shook my head.
He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on,"You are a
clever man, friend John. You reason well, and your wit is bold, but
you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears
hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account
to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot
understand, and yet which are,that some people see things that
others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be
contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know,
some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of
our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not,
then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us
every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new,
and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young, like the
fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in
corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialization. No? Nor in
astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in
hypnotism … "
"Yes," I said. "Charcot has proved that pretty well."
He smiled as he went on, "Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes?
And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the
mind of the great Charcot, alas that he is no more, into the very
soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I
to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to letto take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let
from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me, for I am a
student of the brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject the
thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things
done today in electrical science which would have been deemed
unholy by the very man who discovered electricity, who would
themselves not so long before been burned as wizards. There are
always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine
hundred years, and `Old Parr'one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet
that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poor veins, could not
live even one day? For, had she live one more day, we could save
her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the
altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the
qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you
tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great
spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church
and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of
all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and
elsewhere, there are bats that come out at night and open the veins
of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins, how in some islands
of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day,
and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and
that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot,
flit down on them and then, and then in the morning are found dead
men, white as even Miss Lucy was?"
"Good God, Professor!" I said, starting up. "Do you mean to tell
me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat, and that such a thing is
here in London in the nineteenth century?"
He waved his hand for silence, and went on,"Can you tell me why
the tortoise lives more long than generations of men, why the
elephant goes on and on till he have sees dynasties, and why the
parrot never die only of bite of cat of dog or other complaint? Canparrot never die only of bite of cat of dog or other complaint? Can
you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are
men and women who cannot die? We all know, because science has
vouched for the fact, that there have been toads shut up in rocks
for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold
him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian
fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave
sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and
sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the
unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but
that rise up and walk amongst them as before?"
Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered. He so crowded
on my mind his list of nature's eccentricities and possible
impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dim
idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as long ago he used to do
in his study at Amsterdam. But he used them to tell me the thing,
so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time.
But now I was without his help, yet I wanted to follow him, so I
said,
"Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the
thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present
I am going in my mind from point to point as a madman, and not a
sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a
bog in a midst, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere
blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going."
"That is a good image," he said. "Well, I shall tell you. My
thesis is this, I want you to believe."
"To believe what?"
"To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I
heard once of an American who so defined faith, `that fac ulty
which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.' For
one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind,
and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth,and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth,
like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth
first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we
must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe."
"Then you want me not to let some previous conviction inure the
receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I
read your lesson aright?"
"Ah, you are my favorite pupil still. It is worth to teach you.
Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first
step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the
children's throats were made by the same that made the holes in
Miss Lucy?"
"I suppose so."
He stood up and said solemnly, "Then you are wrong. Oh, would it
were so! But alas! No. It is worse, far, far worse."
"In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?" I
cried.
He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and
placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as
he spoke.
"They were made by Miss Lucy!"


For a while sheer anger mastered me. It was as if he had during
her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose
up as I said to him, "Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?"
He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness
of his face calmed me at once. "Would I were!" he said. "Madness
were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend,
whey, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell so
simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my
life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I
wanted, no so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life,
and from a fearful death? Ah no!"
"Forgive me," said I.
He went on, "My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in
the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady.
But even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to
accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be
possible when we have always believed the `no' of it. It is more
hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as
Miss Lucy. Tonight I go to prove it. Dare you come with me?"
This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth,
Byron excepted from the catagory, jealousy.
"And prove the very truth he most abhorred."
He saw my hesitation, and spoke, "The logic is simple, no
madman's logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a
misty bog. If it not be true, then proof will be relief. At worst
it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread. Yet every
dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come,
I tell you what I propose. First, that we go off now and see that
child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where
the papers say the child is, is a friend of mine, and I think of
yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two
scientists see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall
tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then …
"
"And then?"tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then …
"
"And then?"
He took a key from his pocket and held it up. "And then we spend
the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is
the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffin man to give to
Arthur."
My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful
ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what
heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon
was passing.
We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some
food, and altogether was going on well. Dr, Vincent took the
bandage from its throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no
mistaking the similarity to those which had been on Lucy's throat.
They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher, that was all. We
asked Vincent to what he attributed them, and he replied that it
must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat, but for his
own part, he was inclined to think it was one of the bats which are
so numerous on the northern heights of London. "Out of so many
harmless ones," he said, "there may be some wild specimen from the
South of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one
home, and it managed to escape, or even from the Zoological Gardens
a young one may have got loose, or one be bred there from a
vampire. These things do occur, you, know. Only ten days ago a wolf
got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a
week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood
on the Heath and in every alley in the place until this `bloofer
lady' scare came along, since then it has been quite a gala time
with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up today, asked
the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to
go, he said he wanted to play with the `bloofer lady'."
"I hope," said Van Helsing, "that when you are sending the child
home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it.home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it.
These fancies to stray are most dangerous, and if the child were to
remain out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any
case I suppose you will not let it away for some days?"
"Certainly not, not for a week at least, longer if the wound is
not healed."
Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned
on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw
how dark it was, he said,
"There is not hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let
us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our
way."
We dined at `Jack Straw's Castle' along with a little crowd of
bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o'clock we
started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered
lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their
individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we
were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly, but, as for me, I was in
quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and
fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met
even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round.
At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed
over. With some little difficulty, for it was very dark, and the
whole place seemed so strange to us, we found the Westenra tomb.
The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing
back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede
him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness
of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion
followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after
carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a
spring one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight.
Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece
of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the daytime, and
when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome