Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her, but at that
instant Van Helsing, who, like me, had been startled
by her voice, swooped upon him, and catching him by
the neck with both hands, dragged him back with a fury
of strength which I never thought he could have possessed,
and actually hurled him almost across the room.
“Not on your life!” he said, “not
for your living soul and hers!” And he stood
between them like a lion at bay.
Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment
know what to do or say, and before any impulse of
violence could seize him he realized the place and
the occasion, and stood silent, waiting.
I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing,
and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over
her face. The sharp teeth clamped together.
Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily.
Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their
softness, and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand,
took Van Helsing’s great brown one, drawing
it close to her, she kissed it. “My true
friend,” she said, in a faint voice, but with
untellable pathos, “My true friend, and his!
Oh, guard him, and give me peace!”
“I swear it!” he said solemnly, kneeling
beside her and holding up his hand, as one who registers
an oath. Then he turned to Arthur, and said
to him, “Come, my child, take her hand in yours,
and kiss her on the forehead, and only once.”
Their eyes met instead of their lips, and so they
parted. Lucy’s eyes closed, and Van Helsing,
who had been watching closely, took Arthur’s
arm, and drew him away.
And then Lucy’s breathing became stertorous
again, and all at once it ceased.
“It is all over,” said Van Helsing.
“She is dead!”
I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the
drawing room, where he sat down, and covered his face
with his hands, sobbing in a way that nearly broke
me down to see.
I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking
at poor Lucy, and his face was sterner than ever.
Some change had come over her body. Death had
given back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks
had recovered some of their flowing lines. Even
the lips had lost their deadly pallor. It was
as if the blood, no longer needed for the working
of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death
as little rude as might be.
“We thought her dying whilst she slept, And
sleeping when she died.”
I stood beside Van Helsing, and said, “Ah well,
poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It
is the end!”
He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity, “Not
so, alas! Not so. It is only the beginning!”
When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his
head and answered, “We can do nothing as yet.
Wait and see.”
Dr. Seward’s diary—cont.
The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day,
so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together.
I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the
urbane undertaker proved that his staff was afflicted,
or blessed, with something of his own obsequious suavity.
Even the woman who performed the last offices for the
dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brother-professional
way, when she had come out from the death chamber,
