Suddenly he jumped to his feet.  “Come,” he said, “come, we must see and act.  Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not.  We must fight him all the same.”  He went to the hall door for his bag, and together we went up to Lucy’s room.

Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed.  This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with the same awful, waxen pallor as before.  He wore a look of stern sadness and infinite pity.

“As I expected,” he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his which meant so much.  Without a word he went and locked the door, and then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet another operation of transfusion of blood.  I had long ago recognized the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a warning hand.  “No!” he said.  “Today you must operate.  I shall provide.  You are weakened already.”  As he spoke he took off his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeve.

Again the operation.  Again the narcotic.  Again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep.  This time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested.

Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy’s room without consulting him.  That the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour was a part of the system of cure.  Then he took over the care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next, and would send me word when to come.

After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright and seemingly not much the worse for her terrible ordeal.

What does it all mean?  I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of life amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain.

LUCY WESTENRA’S DIARY

17 September.—­Four days and nights of peace.  I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself.  It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me.  I have a dim half remembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing, darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant.  And then long spells of oblivion, and the rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of water.  Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away.  The noises that used to frighten me out of my wits, the flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not what, have all ceased.  I go to bed now without any fear of sleep.  I do not even try to keep awake.  I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from Haarlem.  Tonight Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has to be for a day in Amsterdam.  But I need not be watched.  I am well enough to be left alone.