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