No More Learning

" As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I
went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and
Quincey in pyjamas and slippers: the former spoke:--

"I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident.
So I woke Quincey, or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things
are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of
us these times. I've been thinking that to-morrow night will not see
things as they have been. We'll have to look back--and forward a little
more than we have done. May we come in? " I nodded, and held the door
open till they had entered; then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the
attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the
floor, he said softly:--

"My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil! " I told him
briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after
the operation--for a short time at all events. He went at once and sat
down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him; we all watched
in patience.

"We shall wait," said Van Helsing, "just long enough to fix the best
spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove
the blood clot; for it is evident that the haemorrhage is increasing. "

The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had
a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing's face I gathered
that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I
dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to
think; but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read
of men who have heard the death-watch. The poor man's breathing came
in uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his
eyes and speak; but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath,
and he would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was
to sick-beds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could
almost hear the beating of my own heart; and the blood surging through
my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became
agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from
their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal
torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead
some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect
it.

At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was
sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor
and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he
spoke:--

"There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have
been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake!
We shall operate just above the ear. "

Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the
breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so
prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest.
Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless
stare. This was continued for a few moments; then it softened into
a glad surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved
convulsively, and as he did so, said:--

"I'll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait-waistcoat. I
have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot
move. What's wrong with my face? It feels all swollen, and it smarts
dreadfully. " He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his
eyes seemed to grow glassy again, so I gently put it back. Then Van
Helsing said in a quiet, grave tone:--

"Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield. " As he heard the voice his face
brightened through its mutilation, and he said:--

"That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some
water, my lips are dry; and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed"--he
stopped and seemed fainting. I called quietly to Quincey--"The
brandy--it is in my study--quick! " He flew and returned with a glass,
the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched
lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor
injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite
conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I
shall never forget, and said:--

"I must not deceive myself; it was no dream, but all a grim reality. "
Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two
figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on:--

"If I were not sure already, I should know from them. " For an instant
his eyes closed--not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he
were bringing all his faculties to bear; when he opened them he said,
hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed:--

"Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes;
and then I must go back to death--or worse! Wet my lips with brandy
again. I have something that I must say before I die; or before my
poor crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you
left me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn't speak then,
for I felt my tongue was tied; but I was as sane then, except in that
way, as I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after
you left me; it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My
brain seemed to become cool again, and I realized where I was. I heard
the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was! " As he spoke
Van Helsing's eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine
and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself; he nodded
slightly, and said: "Go on," in a low voice. Renfield proceeded:--

"He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before;
but he was solid then--not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a
man's when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white
teeth glinted in the moonlight when He turned to look back over the belt
of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn't ask him to come in
at first, though I knew he wanted to--just as he had wanted all along.
Then he began promising me things--not in words but by doing them. " He
was interrupted by a word from the Professor:--

"How? "

"By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the
sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their
wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their
backs. " Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:--

"The _Acberontia atropos of the Sphinges_--what you call the
'Death's-head moth! '" The patient went on without stopping.

"Then he began to whisper: 'Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands,
millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats
too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely
buzzing flies! ' I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could
do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He
beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his
hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass
spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire;
and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that
there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red--like His,
only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought
He seemed to be saying: 'All these lives will I give you, ay, and many
more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and
worship me! ' And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to
close over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself
opening the sash and saying to Him: 'Come in, Lord and Master! ' The rats
were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it
was only open an inch wide--just as the Moon herself has often come in
through the tiniest crack, and has stood before me in all her size and
splendour. "

His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and
he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in
the interval, for his story was further advanced. I was about to call
him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me: "Let him go on.
Do not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at
all if once he lost the thread of his thought. " He proceeded:--

"All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not
even a blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him.
When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even
knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked
out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he
owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn't even smell the same
as he went by me. I couldn't hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs.
Harker had come into the room. "

The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind
him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better.
They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his
face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without
noticing:--

"When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn't the same;
it was like tea after the teapot had been watered. " Here we all moved,
but no one said a word; he went on:--

"I didn't know that she was here till she spoke; and she didn't look the
same. I don't care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood
in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn't think of it
at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad
to know that He had been taking the life out of her. " I could feel that
the rest quivered, as I did; but we remained otherwise still. "So when
He came to-night I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I
grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and
as I knew I was a madman--at times anyhow--I resolved to use my power.
Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle
with me. I held tight; and I thought I was going to win, for I didn't
mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned
into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and
when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There
was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed
to steal away under the door. " His voice was becoming fainter and his
breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively.

"We know the worst now," he said. "He is here, and we know his purpose.
It may not be too late. Let us be armed--the same as we were the other
night, but lose no time; there is not an instant to spare. " There was no
need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words--we shared them in
common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we
had when we entered the Count's house. The Professor had his ready and
as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said:--

"They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is
over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with.
Alas! alas! that the dear Madam Mina should suffer. " He stopped; his
voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in
my own heart.

Outside the Harkers' door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the
latter said:--

"Should we disturb her? "

"We must," said Van Helsing grimly. "If the door be locked, I shall
break it in. "

"May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady's
room! " Van Helsing said solemnly:--

"You are always right; but this is life and death. All chambers are
alike to the doctor; and even were they not they are all as one to me
to-night. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not
open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you too, my friends.
Now! "

He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw
ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell
headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw
across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw
appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck,
and my heart seemed to stand still.

The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the
room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan
Harker, his face flushed, and breathing heavily as though in a stupor.
Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad
figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black.
His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw it we all recognised
the Count--in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left
hand he held both Mrs. Harker's hands, keeping them away with her arms
at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck,
forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared
with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare breast which
was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible
resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk
to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his
face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap
into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils
of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the
white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth,
champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw
his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned
and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet,
and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred
Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside
the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we,
lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a
great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up
under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we
looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting
open had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art and I moved
forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with
it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it
seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a
few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was
ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared
her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of
blood. Her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her
poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the
Count's terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail
which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an
endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently
over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant
despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:--

"Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce.
We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she
recovers herself; I must wake him! " He dipped the end of a towel in
cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all
the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that
was heart-breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the
window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey
Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew
tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the instant
I heard Harker's quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness,
and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look
of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full
consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up.
His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her
arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, however, she
drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands
before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook.

"In God's name what does this mean? " Harker cried out. "Dr. Seward, Dr.
Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear,
what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to
this! " and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly
together. "Good God help us! help her! oh, help her! " With a quick
movement he jumped from the bed, and began to pull on his clothes--all
the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. "What has
happened? Tell me all about it! " he cried without pausing. "Dr. Van
Helsing, you love Mina, I know.
Oh, do something to save her. It cannot
have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for _him_! " His wife,
through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him;
instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried
out:--

"No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough
to-night, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must
stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you! " Her
expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she
pulled him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him fiercely.

Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his
little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:--

"Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you
no foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; and we must be
calm and take counsel together. " She shuddered and was silent, holding
down her head on her husband's breast. When she raised it, his white
night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where
the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she
saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking
sobs:--

"Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it
should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have
most cause to fear. " To this he spoke out resolutely:--

"Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not
hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my
deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour,
if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us! " He put out
his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there
sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked
damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After
a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said
to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous
power to the utmost:--

"And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad
fact; tell me all that has been. " I told him exactly what had happened,
and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched
and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had
held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to
the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to
see that whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over
the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled
hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the
door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at
me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage
of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy
husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on my nodding
acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which
Lord Godalming answered:--

"I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I
looked in the study, but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had,
however----" He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on
the bed. Van Helsing said gravely:--

"Go on friend Arthur. We want no more concealments. Our hope now is in
knowing all. Tell freely! " So Art went on:--

"He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few
seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been
burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes;
the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the
wax had helped the flames. " Here I interrupted. "Thank God there is the
other copy in the safe! " His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he
went on: "I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked
into Renfield's room; but there was no trace there except----! " Again
he paused. "Go on," said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head, and
moistening his lips with his tongue, added: "except that the poor fellow
is dead. " Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of
us as she said solemnly:--

"God's will be done! " I could not but feel that Art was keeping back
something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing.
Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:--

"And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell? "

"A little," he answered. "It may be much eventually, but at present I
can't say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would
go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from
Renfield's window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some
shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He
will not be back to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the
dawn is close. We must work to-morrow! "

He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps
a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could
hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his
hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker's head:--

"And now, Madam Mina--poor, dear, dear Madam Mina--tell us exactly what
happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is
need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done
quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must
end all, if it may so be; and now is the chance that we may live and
learn. "

The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves
as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and
lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held
out one hand to Van Helsing, who took it in his, and, after stooping and
kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that
of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly.
After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she
began:--

"I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but
for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and
myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind--all of them
connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble. "
Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said
lovingly: "Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me
through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me
to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I
need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine do its work
with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to
sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remembered no
more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when
next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that
I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will
find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague
terror which had come to me before, and the same sense of some presence.
I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it
seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught and not I. I
tried, but could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked
around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me: beside the bed,
as if he had stepped out of the mist--or rather as if the mist had
turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared--stood a tall,
thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the descriptions of the
others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell
in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth
showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset
on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar
on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart
stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed.
In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he
spoke to Jonathan:--

"'Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out
before your very eyes. ' I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or
say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder
and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did
so: 'First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well
be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have
appeased my thirst! ' I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not
want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that
such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity
me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat! " Her husband groaned
again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if
he were the injured one, and went on:--

"I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long
this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time
must have passed before he took his foul, awful sneering mouth away. I
saw it drip with the fresh blood! " The remembrance seemed for a while
to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her
husband's sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and
went on:--

"Then he spoke to me mockingly: 'And so you, like the others, would
play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me
and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part
already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path.
They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst
they played wits against me--against me who commanded nations, and
intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they
were born--I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one,
are now to me flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my
bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and
my helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall
minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you
have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my
call. When my brain says "Come! " to you, you shall cross land or sea
to do my bidding; and to that end this! ' With that he pulled open his
shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When
the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding
them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to
the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the--Oh,
my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a
fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my
days? God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril;
and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear! " Then she began to rub her
lips as though to cleanse them from pollution.

As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken,
and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet;
but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look
which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first
red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out
against the whitening hair.

We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy
pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action.

Of this I am sure: the sun rises to-day on no more miserable house in
all the great round of its daily course.




CHAPTER XXII.

/Jonathan Harker's Journal. /


_3 October. _--As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It
is now six o'clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and
take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed
that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God
knows, required to-day. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare
not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end
the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could
not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day. However,
we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears
running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our
faith is tested--that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us
up to the end. The end! oh, my God! what end? . . . To work! To work!

When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor
Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward
told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below
they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was
all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken.

Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had
heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down--he confessed to
half dozing--when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield
had called out loudly several times, "God! God! God! " After that there
was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying
on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing
asked if he had heard "voices" or "a voice," and he said he could not
say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as
there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear
to it, if required, that the word "God" was spoken by the patient. Dr.
Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into
the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it
would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it.
As it was, he thought that on the attendant's evidence he could give a
certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the
coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily
to the same result.

When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next
step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full
confidence; that nothing of any sort--no matter how painful--should be
kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful
to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of
despair. "There must be no more concealment," she said. "Alas! we have
had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that
can give me more pain than I have already endured--than I suffer now!
Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me! "
Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly
but quietly:--

"But, dear Madam Mina are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for
others from yourself, after what has happened? " Her face grew set in
its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she
answered:--

"Ah no! for my mind is made up! "

"To what? " he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in
our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer
came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact:--

"Because if I find in myself--and I shall watch keenly for it--a sign of
harm to any that I love, I shall die! "

"You would not kill yourself? " he asked hoarsely.

"I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such
a pain, and so desperate an effort! " She looked at him meaningly as she
spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and
put his hand on her head as he said solemnly:--

"My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself
I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for
you, even at this moment, if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But, my
child----" for a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his
throat; he gulped it down and went on:--

"There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must
not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own.
Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must
not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would
make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive
to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight
Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day,
or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you
that you do not die--nay, nor think of death--till this great evil be
past. " The poor dear grew white as death, and shook and shivered, as I
have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We
were all silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm, and
turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out
her hand:--

"I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall
strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror
may have passed away from me. " She was so good and brave that we all
felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her,
and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was
to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and
phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she
had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to
do--if "pleased" could be used in connection with so grim an interest.