The Professor watched me critically.  “That will do,” he said.  “Already?” I remonstrated.  “You took a great deal more from Art.”  To which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied,

“He is her lover, her fiance.  You have work, much work to do for her and for others, and the present will suffice.”

When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied digital pressure to my own incision.  I laid down, while I waited his leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick.  By and by he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine for myself.  As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half whispered.

“Mind, nothing must be said of this.  If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him.  It would at once frighten him and enjealous him, too.  There must be none.  So!”

When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said, “You are not much the worse.  Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and rest awhile, then have much breakfast and come here to me.”

I followed out his orders, for I knew how right and wise they were.  I had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength.  I felt very weak, and in the weakness lost something of the amazement at what had occurred.  I fell asleep on the sofa, however, wondering over and over again how Lucy had made such a retrograde movement, and how she could have been drained of so much blood with no sign any where to show for it.  I think I must have continued my wonder in my dreams, for, sleeping and waking my thoughts always came back to the little punctures in her throat and the ragged, exhausted appearance of their edges, tiny though they were.

Lucy slept well into the day, and when she woke she was fairly well and strong, though not nearly so much so as the day before.  When Van Helsing had seen her, he went out for a walk, leaving me in charge, with strict injunctions that I was not to leave her for a moment.  I could hear his voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest telegraph office.

Lucy chatted with me freely, and seemed quite unconscious that anything had happened.  I tried to keep her amused and interested.  When her mother came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any change whatever, but said to me gratefully,

“We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done, but you really must now take care not to overwork yourself.  You are looking pale yourself.  You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit, that you do!” As she spoke, Lucy turned crimson, though it was only momentarily, for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long an unwonted drain to the head.  The reaction came in excessive pallor as she turned imploring eyes on me.  I smiled and nodded, and laid my finger on my lips.  With a sigh, she sank back amid her pillows.

Van Helsing returned in a couple of hours, and presently said to me:  “Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough.  Make yourself strong.  I stay here tonight, and I shall sit up with little miss myself.  You and I must watch the case, and we must have none other to know.  I have grave reasons.  No, do not ask me.  Think what you will.  Do not fear to think even the most not-improbable.  Goodnight.”