Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything.  He said that he had been sitting down, he confessed to half dozing, when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out loudly several times, “God!  God!  God!” After that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him.  Van Helsing asked if he had heard “voices” or “a voice,” and he said he could not say.  That at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have been only one.  He could swear to it, if required, that the word “God” was spoken by the patient.

Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter.  The question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it.  As it was, he thought that on the attendant’s evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed.  In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result.

When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence.  That nothing of any sort, no matter how painful, should be kept from her.  She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair.

“There must be no concealment,” she said.  “Alas!  We have had too much already.  And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already endured, than I suffer now!  Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!”

Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly, “But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid.  Not for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened?”

Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered, “Ah no!  For my mind is made up!”

“To what?” he asked gently, whilst we were all very still, for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant.

Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she was simply stating a fact, “Because if I find in myself, and I shall watch keenly for it, a sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!”

“You would not kill yourself?” he asked, hoarsely.

“I would.  If there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!” She looked at him meaningly as she spoke.

He was sitting down, but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly.  “My child, there is such an one if it were for your good.  For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were best.  Nay, were it safe!  But my child . . .”