Bram Stoker

, what a wealth of sor­row in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! poor Lucy!

But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things

What I saw was the Count’s head com­ing out from the win­dow. I did not

I was not alone. The room was the same, un­changed in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the bril­liant moon­light, my own foot­step

Good night, every­body.

It was a dreary blank that was be­fore us. Omne ig­notum pro mag­ni­fico; and so with heavy hearts we start to find what ships leave for the Black Sea last night.

He have in­fect you—oh, for­give me, my dear, that I must say such; but it is for good of you that I speak. He in­fect you in such wise, that even if he do no more, you have only to live—to live in your own old, sweet way; and so in time, death, which is of man’s com­mon lot and with God’s sanc­tion, shall make you like to him. This must not be! We have sworn to­gether that it must not. Thus are we min­is­ters of God’s own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to mon­sters, whose very ex­ist­ence would de­fame Him. He have al­lowed us to re­deem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to re­deem more. Like them we shall travel to­wards the sun­rise; and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause.”

When we met at early break­fast there was more gen­eral cheer­ful­ness than any of us had ever ex­pec­ted to ex­per­i­ence again.

It is really won­der­ful how much re­si­li­ence there is in hu­man nature. Let any ob­struct­ing cause, no mat­ter what, be re­moved in any way—even by death—and we fly back to first prin­ciples of hope and en­joy­ment. More than once as we sat around the table, my eyes opened in won­der whether the whole of the past days had not been a dream. It was only when I caught sight of the red blotch on Mrs. Harker’s fore­head that I was brought back to real­ity. Even now, when I am gravely re­volving the mat­ter, it is al­most im­possible to real­ise that the cause of all our trouble is still ex­ist­ent. Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells; it is only now and again, when some­thing re­calls it to her mind, that she thinks of her ter­rible scar.

“Madam Mina, our poor, dear Madam Mina is chan­ging.” A cold shiver ran through me to find my worst fears thus en­dorsed. Van Helsing con­tin­ued:―

“With the sad ex­per­i­ence of Miss Lucy, we must this time be warned be­fore things go too far. Our task is now in real­ity more dif­fi­cult than ever, and this new trouble makes every hour of the direst im­port­ance. I can see the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the vam­pire com­ing in her face. It is now but very, very slight; but it is to be seen if we have eyes to no­tice without to pre­judge. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard. But these are not all, there is to her the si­lence now of­ten; as so it was with Miss Lucy. She did not speak, even when she wrote that which she wished to be known later. Now my fear is this. If it be that she can, by our hyp­notic trance, tell what the Count see and hear, is it not more true that he who have hyp­not­ise her first, and who have drink of her very blood and make her drink of his, should, if he will, com­pel her mind to dis­close to him that which she know?” I nod­ded ac­qui­es­cence; he went on:―

“Then, what we must do is to pre­vent this; we must keep her ig­nor­ant of our in­tent, and so she can­not tell what she know not. This is a pain­ful task! Oh, so pain­ful that it heart­break me to think of; but it must be. When today we meet, I must tell her that for reason which we will not to speak she must not more be of our coun­cil, but be simply guarded by us.”

Quin­cey’s head is level at all times, but most so when there is to hunt, meta­phor be more dis­hon­our to sci­ence than wolves be of danger to man.