prompt:
Chapter: 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 were
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 to-night. 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 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 to-morrow 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. To-morrow we shall have much to do, but
for the to-night 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 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:--

"To-morrow 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 as 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 it is I that shall
operate, and you must only help. I would like to do it to-night, but for
Arthur I must not; he will be free after his father's funeral to-morrow,
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 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 into 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 towards 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 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's 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.
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.

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 a-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 death faces became
softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty; that this was
especially so when death had been preceded by any acute or prolonged
suffering. It 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 good-bye, 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
good-bye; so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker's men
to proceed with the preparations 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 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's a hard thing 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 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, my 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 patrolling 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 odour 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 down Piccadilly.
Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in 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 his 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
to 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 came out of
the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then drove
off. The 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 I only knew! if I only 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 him
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 quietly 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 that 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. Westenra died five days ago, and
that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried to-day."

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 sweetness out of his life! God help us all to bear our
troubles.

_Dr. Seward's Diary._

_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 over to Amsterdam to-night, but says he returns
to-morrow 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 humour 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 the 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 so 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 to you, friend
John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son--yet even
at such 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 labour, 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 explanation 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."

"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 very 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 neighbourhood 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 as "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 neighbourhood 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 favourite 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 whatever animal inflicts them has
a system or method of its own. The police of the division have been
instructed to keep a sharp look-out 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."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Lucys funeral is arranged. According to legal matters, as both Lucy and Mrs. Westenra die, bereft of heir, the estate passes to Arthur. Van Helsing wants to perform an operation on Lucy the next morning. He puts a crucifix on the coffin but the very next morning the crucifix disappears. In the meantime, Jonathan sees Dracula but a younger version. Lastly, this chapter ends the tale of strange women in black, preying on children.


prompt:
Chapter: _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 his
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 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, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me.

"VAN HELSING."

_Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing._

"_25 September._--Come to-day 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
sleep-walking, 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 colour. 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 she knows, 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 type-written 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--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 to-morrow 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 practise interviewing; Jonathan's
friend on "The Exeter News" told him that memory was 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 one at once as indicative of thought and power; the
head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face,
clean-shaven, 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.

"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 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 knew that the friend of that poor lily 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 in
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 will be grateful; you will do me much favour." I
could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit--I suppose it is
some of the 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 honour 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
workbasket 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 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 daze, I am dazzle, 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. Madam"--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 happy life and good life, and
your husband will be blessed in you."

"But, doctor, you praise me too much, and--and you do not know me."

"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's
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 was not good. What kind of
a 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 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 overwrought 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 all about Lucy, and so now we shall not
speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter to-night, 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:--

"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 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,
so 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 off-hand, 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--ay, 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 to-day I come to see you, for
I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzle--dazzle 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 to-night from
Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that I shall have no fear
to-night. 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 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 all 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 where 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 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 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 to 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 colour--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 same record. Until this afternoon I had no cause 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. To-day 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 punctured 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 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 on great loss or waste of blood."

"And how the blood lost or waste?" I shook my head. He stepped over and
sat down beside me, and went on:--

"You are 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 contemplate 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 materialisation. 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 let from premise to conclusion
be a blank? No? Then tell me--for I am student of the brain--how you
accept the hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my
friend, that there are things done to-day in electrical science which
would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered
electricity--who would themselves not so long before have 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 have 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 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 seen dynasties; and
why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint?
Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are
some few who live on always if they be permit; 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 then to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of
thought in mind all the time. But now I was without this 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 mad man, and not a sane one, follows an
idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a mist, jumping
from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without
knowing where I am going."

"That is 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 faculty 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 a 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 injure the
receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read
your lesson aright?"

"Ah, you are my favourite 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 hole 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!"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Minas journal continues to note. Jonathan is in a poor state of mind. Van Helsing writes a letter asking Mina to meet him regarding Lucy. She meets him and then tells about Jonathan tale and gives him Jonathans diary. Van Helsing writes back that whatever Jonathan has seen is true. Jonathan is rejuvenated. Dr. Seward still has no suspicion how Lucy died. Van Helsing explains to him again about vampires and how Lucy made the pinpoint mark on the children.


prompt:
Chapter: 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, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell
you 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,
now 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. To-night 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 category, 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 be not true, then proof will be relief;
at worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread; yet
very 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 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?" 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
that 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 Zooelogical 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 when it has been quite a gala-time with them. Even
this poor little mite, when he woke up to-day, 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. 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 no 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 day-time, and when wreathed
with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some
days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites
turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the
beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured
stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished
brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a
candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been
imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life--animal life--was
not the only thing which could pass away.

Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so
that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm
dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he
made assurance of Lucy's coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took
out a turnscrew.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced." Straightway he began
taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the
casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed
to be as much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have
stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living; I actually took
hold of his hand to stop him. He only said: "You shall see," and again
fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny fret-saw. Striking the turnscrew
through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince, he
made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of
the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the week-old corpse. We
doctors, who have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to
such things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never
stopped for a moment; he sawed down a couple of feet along one side of
the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking the
edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the
coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to
look.

I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty.

It was certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but
Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground,
and so emboldened to proceed in his task. "Are you satisfied now, friend
John?" he asked.

I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as
I answered him:--

"I am satisfied that Lucy's body is not in that coffin; but that only
proves one thing."

"And what is that, friend John?"

"That it is not there."

"That is good logic," he said, "so far as it goes. But how do you--how
can you--account for it not being there?"

"Perhaps a body-snatcher," I suggested. "Some of the undertaker's people
may have stolen it." I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet it was
the only real cause which I could suggest. The Professor sighed. "Ah
well!" he said, "we must have more proof. Come with me."

He put on the coffin-lid again, gathered up all his things and placed
them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the
bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he closed the door and
locked it. He handed me the key, saying: "Will you keep it? You had
better be assured." I laughed--it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am
bound to say--as I motioned him to keep it. "A key is nothing," I said;
"there may be duplicates; and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock
of that kind." He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he
told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at
the other. I took up my place behind a yew-tree, and I saw his dark
figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my
sight.

It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I heard a distant
clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two. I was chilled and
unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand
and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly
observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust so altogether I had
a dreary, miserable time.

Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white
streak, moving between two dark yew-trees at the side of the churchyard
farthest from the tomb; at the same time a dark mass moved from the
Professor's side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I
too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I
stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an
early cock crew. A little way off, beyond a line of scattered
juniper-trees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim
figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden
by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the
rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure, and
coming over, found the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When
he saw me he held it out to me, and said:--

"Are you satisfied now?"

"No," I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive.

"Do you not see the child?"

"Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?" I
asked.

"We shall see," said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way
out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child.

When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of
trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat. It was
without a scratch or scar of any kind.

"Was I right?" I asked triumphantly.

"We were just in time," said the Professor thankfully.

We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted
about it. If we were to take it to a police-station we should have to
give some account of our movements during the night; at least, we should
have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child.
So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we
heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find
it; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out
well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman's heavy
tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until
he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation
of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a
cab near the "Spaniards," and drove to town.

I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours'
sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall
go with him on another expedition.

       *       *       *       *       *

_27 September._--It was two o'clock before we found a suitable
opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed,
and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily
away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, we saw
the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till
morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we should not
want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the
reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of
place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were
incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless.
Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead
nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to
open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own
eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however,
and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road,
no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again
courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as
last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshine
streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed.
He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shock
of surprise and dismay shot through me.

There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her
funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I
could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than
before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom.

"Is this a juggle?" I said to him.

"Are you convinced now?" said the Professor in response, and as he spoke
he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the
dead lips and showed the white teeth.

"See," he went on, "see, they are even sharper than before. With this
and this"--and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below
it--"the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend
John?" Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I _could_ not
accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to
argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:--

"She may have been placed here since last night."

"Indeed? That is so, and by whom?"

"I do not know. Some one has done it."

"And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not
look so." I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not
seem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor
triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising
the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and
examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:--

"Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded; here is
some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire
when she was in a trance, sleep-walking--oh, you start; you do not know
that, friend John, but you shall know it all later--and in trance could
he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she
is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when
the Un-Dead sleep at home"--as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of
his arm to designate what to a vampire was "home"--"their face show what
they are, but this so sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to
the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so
it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep." This turned my blood
cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing's
theories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the
idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in
my face, for he said almost joyously:--

"Ah, you believe now?"

I answered: "Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to
accept. How will you do this bloody work?"

"I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall
drive a stake through her body." It made me shudder to think of so
mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling
was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to
shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing
called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective,
or all objective?

I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as
if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a
snap, and said:--

"I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I
did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is
to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things that are
thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is
simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to act
now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to
want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the
wounds on Lucy's throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child's at
the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full
to-day with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more
beautiful in a whole week, after she die--if you know of this and know
of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard,
and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect
Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I
took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me
because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say
good-bye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken idea
this woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we have
killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that
have killed her by our ideas; and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet
he never can be sure; and that is the worst of all. And he will
sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint
his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and again, he
will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all,
an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since
I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he
must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow,
must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to
him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is
made up. Let us go. You return home for to-night to your asylum, and see
that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this
churchyard in my own way. To-morrow night you will come to me to the
Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too,
and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we
shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and
there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set."

So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the
churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly.

_Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel directed to
John Seward, M. D._

(Not delivered.)

"_27 September._

"Friend John,--

"I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in
that churchyard. It pleases me that the Un-Dead, Miss Lucy, shall not
leave to-night, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager.
Therefore I shall fix some things she like not--garlic and a
crucifix--and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as Un-Dead,
and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out; they
may not prevail on her wanting to get in; for then the Un-Dead is
desperate, and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may
be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after the sunrise,
and if there be aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss
Lucy or from her, I have no fear; but that other to whom is there that
she is Un-Dead, he have now the power to seek her tomb and find shelter.
He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all
along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy's life, and
we lost; and in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have always the
strength in his hand of twenty men; even we four who gave our strength
to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and
I know not what. So if it be that he come thither on this night he shall
find me; but none other shall--until it be too late. But it may be that
he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should; his
hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the
Un-Dead woman sleep, and the one old man watch.

"Therefore I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this,
the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and then find this
great Un-Dead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake
through it, so that the world may rest from him.

"If it be so, farewell.

"VAN HELSING."

_Dr. Seward's Diary._

_28 September._--It is wonderful what a good night's sleep will do for
one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing's monstrous
ideas; but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on
common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his
mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be _some_
rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that
the Professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that
if he went off his head he would carry out his intent with regard to
some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed
it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Van
Helsing was mad; but anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some
light on the mystery.

       *       *       *       *       *

_29 September, morning._.... Last night, at a little before ten o'clock,
Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing's room; he told us all that he
wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all
our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would
all come with him too, "for," he said, "there is a grave duty to be done
there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter?" This query was
directly addressed to Lord Godalming.

"I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble
around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been
curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over; but the
more we talked, the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself
that I'm about up a tree as to any meaning about anything."

"Me too," said Quincey Morris laconically.

"Oh," said the Professor, "then you are nearer the beginning, both of
you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can
even get so far as to begin."

It was evident that he recognised my return to my old doubting frame of
mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said
with intense gravity:--

"I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is, I
know, much to ask; and when you know what it is I propose to do you will
know, and only then, how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me
in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a
time--I must not disguise from myself the possibility that such may
be--you shall not blame yourselves for anything."

"That's frank anyhow," broke in Quincey. "I'll answer for the Professor.
I don't quite see his drift, but I swear he's honest; and that's good
enough for me."

"I thank you, sir," said Van Helsing proudly. "I have done myself the
honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear
to me." He held out a hand, which Quincey took.

Then Arthur spoke out:--

"Dr. Van Helsing, I don't quite like to 'buy a pig in a poke,' as they
say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman
or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise.
If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of
these two, then I give my consent at once; though for the life of me, I
cannot understand what you are driving at."

"I accept your limitation," said Van Helsing, "and all I ask of you is
that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first
consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your
reservations."

"Agreed!" said Arthur; "that is only fair. And now that the
_pourparlers_ are over, may I ask what it is we are to do?"

"I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard at
Kingstead."

Arthur's face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way:--

"Where poor Lucy is buried?" The Professor bowed. Arthur went on: "And
when there?"

"To enter the tomb!" Arthur stood up.

"Professor, are you in earnest; or it is some monstrous joke? Pardon me,
I see that you are in earnest." He sat down again, but I could see that
he sat firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There was
silence until he asked again:--

"And when in the tomb?"

"To open the coffin."

"This is too much!" he said, angrily rising again. "I am willing to be
patient in all things that are reasonable; but in this--this desecration
of the grave--of one who----" He fairly choked with indignation. The
Professor looked pityingly at him.

"If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend," he said, "God knows I
would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and
for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!"

Arthur looked up with set white face and said:--

"Take care, sir, take care!"

"Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?" said Van Helsing.
"And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go
on?"

"That's fair enough," broke in Morris.

After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort:--

"Miss Lucy is dead; is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong to
her. But if she be not dead----"

Arthur jumped to his feet.

"Good God!" he cried. "What do you mean? Has there been any mistake; has
she been buried alive?" He groaned in anguish that not even hope could
soften.

"I did not say she was alive, my child; I did not think it. I go no
further than to say that she might be Un-Dead."

"Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what
is it?"

"There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they
may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But
I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?"

"Heavens and earth, no!" cried Arthur in a storm of passion. "Not for
the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr.
Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should
torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should want to
cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad that speak such things, or
am I mad to listen to them? Don't dare to think more of such a
desecration; I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a
duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage; and, by God, I shall do
it!"

Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and
said, gravely and sternly:--

"My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty
to you, a duty to the dead; and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you
now is that you come with me, that you look and listen; and if when
later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its
fulfilment even than I am, then--then I shall do my duty, whatever it
may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordship's wishes I shall
hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where
you will." His voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of
pity:--

"But, I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of
acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring
my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if
the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from
you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can
to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so
much of labour and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land
to do what I can of good; at the first to please my friend John, and
then to help a sweet young lady, whom, too, I came to love. For her--I
am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness--I gave what you
gave; the blood of my veins; I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her
lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave to her my nights
and days--before death, after death; and if my death can do her good
even now, when she is the dead Un-Dead, she shall have it freely." He
said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected
by it. He took the old man's hand and said in a broken voice:--

"Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand; but at least I
shall go with you and wait."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Dr. Seward continues to note in his diary. He is enraged that Lucy could be the woman in black who attacks children. They examine the child who is attacked by the lady in black. He has similar pinpoints on his throat. Dr. Seward and the Professor go to the churchyard where Lucy is buried. Her coffin is empty. The childs pinpoint scratches have mysteriously disappeared. Dr. Seward is still not convinced. On 27th of September, at 2 O Clock in the afternoon, they open the coffin. Lucy is in her coffin, looking as rosy as ever. Van Helsing plans to cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic and then put a stake to her body. Arthur and Quincey Morris are appalled but agree in he end to go with Dr. Seward and Van Helsing.