Chapter 173

9 September.—I feel so happy to-night. I have been so miserably weak, that to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine

after a long spell of east wind out of a steel sky. Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about

me. I suppose it is that sickness and weakness are selfish things and turn our inner eyes and sympathy on ourselves, whilst health and

strength give Love rein, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he wills. I know where my thoughts are. If Arthur only knew! My

dear, my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking. Oh, the blissful rest of last night! How I slept, with that dear,

good Dr. Seward watching me. And to-night I shall not fear to sleep, since he is close at hand and within call. Thank everybody for

being so good to me! Thank God! Good-night, Arthur.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

10 September.—I was conscious of the Professor’s hand on my head, and started awake all in a second. That is one of the things that we

learn in an asylum, at any rate.

“And how is our patient?”

“Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me,” I answered.

“Come, let us see,” he said. And together we went into the room.

The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently, whilst Van Helsing stepped, with his soft, cat-like tread, over to the bed.

As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded the room, I heard the Professor’s low hiss of inspiration, and knowing its

rarity, a deadly fear shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved back, and his exclamation of horror, “Gott in Himmel!” needed no

enforcement from his agonised face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed, and his iron face was drawn and ashen white. I felt my

knees begin to tremble.

There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly white and wan-looking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the

gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a corpse after a prolonged illness. Van Helsing raised his

foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down again softly.

“Quick!” he said. “Bring the brandy.” I flew to the dining-room, and returned with the decanter. He wetted the poor white lips with it,

and together we rubbed palm and wrist and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising suspense said:—

“It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is undone; we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now; I

have to call on you yourself this time, friend John.” As he spoke, he was dipping into his bag and producing the instruments for

transfusion; I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt-sleeve. There was no possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need

of one; and so, without a moment’s delay, we began the operation. After a time—it did not seem a short time either, for the draining

away of one’s blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a terrible feeling—Van Helsing held up a warning finger. “Do not stir,” he

said, “but I fear that with growing strength she may wake; and that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall precaution take.

I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia.” He proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent. The effect on Lucy was

not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint

tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood

drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.

The Professor watched me critically. “That will do,” he said. “Already?” I remonstrated. “You took a great deal more from Art.” To

which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied:—

“He is her lover, her fiancé. You have work, much work, to do for her and for others; and the present will suffice.”

When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied digital pressure to my own incision. I laid down, whilst I waited

his leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick. By-and-by he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass

of wine for myself. As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half whispered:—

“Mind, nothing must be said of this. If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten

him and enjealous him, too. There must be none. So!”

When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said:—