I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent.

“She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth.  So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist, and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish.  And you, sir . . .  I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others, but I have seen your true self since last night.  You will give me your hand, will you not?  And let us be friends for all our lives.”

We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky.

“And now,” he said, “may I ask you for some more help?  I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know.  You can help me here.  Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania?  Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind, but at first this will do.”

“Look here, Sir,” I said, “does what you have to do concern the Count?”

“It does,” he said solemnly.

“Then I am with you heart and soul.  As you go by the 10:30 train, you will not have time to read them, but I shall get the bundle of papers.  You can take them with you and read them in the train.”

After breakfast I saw him to the station.  When we were parting he said, “Perhaps you will come to town if I send for you, and take Madam Mina too.”

“We shall both come when you will,” I said.

I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over.  His eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, “The Westminster Gazette”, I knew it by the colour, and he grew quite white.  He read something intently, groaning to himself, “Mein Gott!  Mein Gott!  So soon!  So soon!” I do not think he remembered me at the moment.  Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off.  This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out, “Love to Madam Mina.  I shall write so soon as ever I can.”

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

26 September.—­Truly there is no such thing as finality.  Not a week since I said “Finis,” and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the record.  Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done.  Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was.  He was already well ahead with his fly business, and he had just started in the spider line also, so he had not been of any trouble to me.  I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well.  Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits.  Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy, so as to them all my mind is at rest.  As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised.