“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 may 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, as 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 offhand, 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, aye, 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 today I come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzled, dazzled 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.