CHAPTER 21
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
3 October.--Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well as I can remember, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I can recall must be forgotten. In all calmness I must proceed.
When I came to Renfield's room I found her lying on the floor on her left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move her, it became at once apparent that she had received some terrible injuries. There seemed none of the unity of purpose between the parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floor. Indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood originated.
The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned her over, 'I think, lady, her back is broken. See, both her right arm and leg and the whole side of her face are paralysed.'How such a thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. She seemed quite bewildered, and her brows were gathered in as she said, 'I can't understand the two things. She could mark her face like that by beating her own head on the floor. I saw a young man do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on him. And I suppose she might have broken her neck by falling out of bed, if she got in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I can't imagine how the two things occurred. If her back was broke, she couldn't beat her head, and if her face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of it.'
I said to her, 'Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask her to kindly come here at once. I want her without an instant's delay.'
The woman ran off, and within a few minutes the Professor, in her dressing gown and slippers, appeared. When she saw Renfield on the ground, she looked keenly at her a moment, and then turned to me. I think she recognized my thought in my eyes, for she said very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant, 'Ah, a sad accident! She will need very careful watching, and much attention. I shall stay with you myself, but I shall first dress myself. If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you.'
The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to see that she had suffered some terrible injury.
Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with her a surgical case. She had evidently been thinking and had her mind made up, for almost before she looked at the patient, she whispered to me, 'Send the attendant away. We must be alone with her when she becomes conscious, after the operation.'
I said, 'I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere.'
The woman withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient. The wounds of the face were superficial. The real injury was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area.
The Professor thought a moment and said, 'We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be. The rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of her injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too late.'
As she was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Artemis and Quincy in pajamas and slippers; the former spoke, 'I heard your woman call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell her of an accident. So I woke Quincy or rather called for her as she 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 tomorrow 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 Quincy saw the attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the floor, she said softly, 'My God! What has happened to her? Poor, poor devil!'
I told her briefly, and added that we expected she would recover consciousness after the operation, for a short time, at all events. She went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside her. 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 she felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded the words Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to think. But the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read of women who have heard the death watch. The poor woman's breathing came in uncertain gasps. Each instant she seemed as though she would open her eyes and speak, but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath, and she 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 agonizing. 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. She might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor and caught her eyes fixed on mine. Her face was sternly set as she spoke, 'There is no time to lose. Her 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 she 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 her bosom . Suddenly her eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This was continued for a few moments, then it was softened into a glad surprise, and from her lips came a sigh of relief. She moved convulsively, and as she 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.'
She tried to turn her head, but even with the effort her 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, Ms. Renfield.'
As she heard the voice her face brightened, through its mutilation, and she 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 . . .'
She stopped and seemed fainting. I called quietly to Quincy, 'The brandy, it is in my study, quick!’ she 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 her poor injured brain had been working in the interval, for when she was quite conscious, she looked at me piercingly with an agonized confusion which I shall never forget, and said, 'I must not deceive myself. It was no dream, but all a grim reality.’ Then her eyes roved round the room. As they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed she went on, 'If I were not sure already, I would know from them.'
For an instant her eyes closed, not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though she were bringing all her faculties to bear. When she opened them she said, hurriedly, and with more energy than she 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 ti
ed. 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 She was!'
As she spoke, Van Helsing's eyes never blinked, but her hand came out and met mine and gripped it hard. She did not, however, betray herself. She nodded slightly and said, 'Go on,’ In a low voice.
Renfield proceeded. 'She came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen her often before, but she was solid then, not a ghost, and her eyes were fierce like a woman's when angry. She was laughing with her red mouth, the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when she turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn't ask her to come in at first, though I knew she wanted to, just as she had wanted all along. Then she began promising me things, not in words but by doing them.'
She was interrupted by a word from the Professor, 'How?'
'By making them happen. Just as she 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 her as she whispered to me unconsciously, 'The Acherontia Atropos of the Sphinges, what you call the 'Death's-head Moth'?'
The patient went on without stopping, 'Then she 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 her, for I wanted to see what she could do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in Her house. She beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and She raised her 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 She moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red, like Her only smaller. She held up her hand, and they all stopped, and I thought she 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, Lady and Mistress!' The rats were all gone, but She slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch wide, just as the Moon himself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all his size and splendour.'
Her voice was weaker, so I moistened her lips with the brandy again, and she continued, but it seemed as though her memory had gone on working in the interval for her story was further advanced. I was about to call her back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me, 'Let her go on. Do not interrupt her. She cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once she lost the thread of her thought.'
She proceeded, 'All day I waited to hear from her, but she did not send me anything, not even a blowfly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with her. When she did slide in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with her. She sneered at me, and her white face looked out of the mist with her red eyes gleaming, and she went on as though she owned the whole place, and I was no one. She didn't even smell the same as she went by me. I couldn't hold her. I thought that, somehow, Harker had come into the room.'
The two women sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind her so that she could not see them, but where they could hear better. They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered. Her face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without noticing, 'When Harker came in to see me this afternoon he wasn't the same. It was like tea after the teapot has been watered.'Here we all moved, but no one said a word.
She went on, 'I didn't know that he was here till he spoke, and he didn't look the same. I don't care for the pale people. I like them with lots of blood in them, and his all seemed to have run out. I didn't think of it at the time, but when he went away I began to think, and it made me mad to know that She had been taking the life out of him.'I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did; but we remained otherwise still. 'So when She came tonight 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 She felt it too, for She 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 his life, till I saw Her eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. She slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, She 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.'
Her voice was becoming fainter and her breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively.
'We know the worst now,’ she said. 'She is here, and we know her 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 Countess' house. The Professor had her ready, and as we met in the corridor she pointed to them significantly as she 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 dear Minas should suffer!’ she stopped, her 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 Quincy held back, and the latter said, 'Should we disturb him?'
'We must,’ said Van Helsing grimly. 'If the door be locked, I shall break it in.'
'May it not frighten his 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 tonight. Friend Joan, 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!'
She turned the handle as she 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 her as she gathered herself 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 Joanna Harker, her 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 her husband. By his side stood a tall, thin woman, clad in black. Her face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognized the Countess, in every way, even to the scar on her forehead. With her left hand she held both Harker's hands, keeping them away with his arms at full tension. Her right hand gripped his by the back of the neck, forcing his face down on her chest . His white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the woman's bare bosom which was shown by her 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 Countess turned her face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. Her 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, clamped together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw her victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a
height, she turned and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained her feet, and was holding towards her the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The Countess suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucas had done outside the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back she 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 Quincy'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 Harker, who by this time had drawn his 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 he lay in his helpless attitude and disarray. His face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared his lips and cheeks and chin. From his throat trickled a thin stream of blood. His eyes were mad with terror. Then he put before his face his poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Countess' 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 him body, whilst Art, after looking at his face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room.
Van Helsing whispered to me, 'Joanna is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Minas for a few moments till he recovers himself. I must wake her!'
She dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick her on the face, her husband all the while holding his face between his 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 Quincy Morris run across the lawn and hide herself in the shadow of a great yew tree. It puzzled me to think why she was doing this. But at the instant I heard Harker's quick exclamation as she woke to partial consciousness, and turned to the bed. On her face, as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement. She seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon her all at once, and she started up.
Her husband was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to her with his arms stretched out, as though to embrace her. Instantly, however, he drew them in again, and putting his elbows together, held his hands before his face, and shuddered till the bed beneath his 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? Minas, dear what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! Has it come to this!’ and, raising herself to her knees, she beat her hands wildly together. 'Good God help us! Help him! Oh, help him!'
With a quick movement she jumped from bed, and began to pull on her clothes, all the woman in her awake at the need for instant exertion. 'What has happened? Tell me all about it!’ she cried without pausing. 'Dr. Van Helsing, you love Minas, I know. Oh, do something to save him. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard him while I look for her!'
Her husband, through his terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to her. Instantly forgetting his own grief, he seized hold of her and cried out.
'No! No! Joanna, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough tonight, God knows, without the dread of her harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!'His expression became frantic as he spoke. And, she yielding to him, he pulled her down sitting on the bedside, and clung to her fiercely.
Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up her 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 tonight, and we must be calm and take counsel together.'
He shuddered and was silent, holding down his head on his husband's breast. When he raised it, her white nightrobe was stained with blood where his lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in the neck had sent forth drops. The instant he saw it he drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs.
'Unclean, unclean! I must touch her or kiss her no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now her worst enemy, and whom she may have most cause to fear.'
To this she spoke out resolutely, 'Nonsense, Minas. 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!'
She put out her arms and folded his to her breast. And for a while he lay there sobbing. She looked at us over him bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above her quivering nostrils. Her mouth was set as steel.
After a while his sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then she said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried her 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 her exactly what had happened and she listened with seeming impassiveness, but her nostrils twitched and her eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Countess had held her husband in that terrible and horrid position, with his mouth to the open wound in her 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, Quincy and Godalming knocked at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I understood her to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy wife and husband from each other and from themselves. So on nodding acquiescence to her she asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lady Godalming answered.
'I could not see her anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I looked in the study but, though she had been there, she had gone. She had, however . . .'She stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed.
Van Helsing said gravely, 'Go on, friend Artemis. We want here no more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell freely!'
So Art went on, 'She had been there, and though it could only have been for a few seconds, she 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!'
Her face lit for a moment, but fell again as she went on. 'I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of her. I looked into Renfield's room, but there was no trace there except . . .'Again she paused.
'Go on,’ said Harker hoarsely. So she bowed her head and moistening her lips with her tongue, added, 'except that the poor fellow is dead.'
Harker raised his head, looking from one to the other of us he 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 Quincy, have you any to tell?'
'A little,’ she answered. 'It may be much eventually, but at present I can't say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Countess would go when she left the house. I did not see her, but I saw a bat rise from Renfield's window, and flap westward. I expected to see her in some shape go back to Carfax, but she evidently sought some other lair. She will not be back tonight, for the sky is reddening in the east, and the dawn is close. We must work tomorrow!'
She said the latter words through her 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 h
er hand tenderly on Harker's head, ‘and now, Minas, poor dear, dear, Minas, 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 be so, and now is the chance that we may live and learn.'
The poor dear sir shivered, and I could see the tension of his nerves as he clasped his wife closer to his and bent his head lower and lower still on her breast. Then he raised his head proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in hers, and after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that of his wife, who held her other arm thrown round his protectingly. After a pause in which he was evidently ordering his thoughts, he 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.'His wife involuntarily groaned as he turned to her 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 to 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 remember no more. Joanna coming in had not waked me, for she 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 Joanna, but found that she slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was she who had taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I tried, but I could not wake her. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me. Beside the bed, as if she had stepped out of the mist, or rather as if the mist had turned into her figure, for it had entirely disappeared, stood a tall, thin woman, all in black. I knew her at once from the description 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 her forehead where Joanna had struck her. For an instant my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralyzed. In the pause she spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as she spoke to Joanna.
''Silence! If you make a sound I shall take her and dash her brains out before your very eyes.' I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything. With a mocking smile, she placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as she 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 her. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when her touch is on her victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! She placed her reeking lips upon my throat!'His wife groaned again. He clasped her hand harder, and looked at her pityingly, as if she 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 she took her foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!' The remembrance seemed for a while to overpower him, and he drooped and would have sunk down but for his husband's sustaining arm. With a great effort he recovered himself and went on.
'Then she spoke to me mockingly, ‘and so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these women to hunt me and frustrate me in my design! 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 she pulled open her shirt, and with her long sharp nails opened a vein in her breast. When the blood began to spurt out, she took my hands in one of hers, 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 to 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 he is dear!'Then he began to rub his lips as though to cleanse them from pollution.
As he was telling his terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet; but over her 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 today on no more miserable house in all the great round of its daily course.
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