Bram Stoker

, what a wealth of sor­row in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! poor Lucy!

But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things

What I saw was the Count’s head com­ing out from the win­dow. I did not

I was not alone. The room was the same, un­changed in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the bril­liant moon­light, my own foot­step

Some of the “New Wo­men” writers will some day start an idea that men and wo­men should be al­lowed to see each other asleep be­fore pro­pos­ing or ac­cept­ing. But I sup­pose the New Wo­man won’t con­des­cend in fu­ture to ac­cept; she will do the pro­pos­ing her­self. And a nice job she will make of it, too! There’s some con­sol­a­tion in that.

I have been more touched than I can say by your grief. That is a won­der­ful ma­chine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the an­guish of your heart. It was like a soul cry­ing out to Almighty God. No one must hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be use­ful. I have copied out the words on my type­writer, and none other need now hear your heart beat, as I did.”

Good night, every­body.

He is only a wreck of him­self, and he does not re­mem­ber any­thing that has happened to him for a long time past. At least, he wants me to be­lieve so, and I shall never ask. He has had some ter­rible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to re­call it. Sister Agatha, who is a good creature and a born nurse, tells me that he raved of dread­ful things whilst he was off his head. I wanted her to tell me what they were; but she would only cross her­self, and say she would never tell; that the rav­ings of the sick were the secrets of God, and that if a nurse through her vo­ca­tion should hear them, she should re­spect her trust. She is a sweet, good soul, and the next day, when she saw I was troubled, she opened up the sub­ject again, and after say­ing that she could never men­tion what my poor dear raved about, ad­ded: ‘I can tell you this much, my dear: that it was not about any­thing which he has done wrong him­self; and you, as his wife to be, have no cause to be con­cerned. He has not for­got­ten you or what he owes to you. His fear was of great and ter­rible things, which no mor­tal can treat of.’ I do be­lieve the dear soul thought I might be jeal­ous lest my poor dear should have fallen in love with any other girl. The idea of my be­ing jeal­ous about Jonathan! And yet, my dear, let me whis­per, I felt a thrill of joy through me when I knew that no other wo­man was a cause of trouble.

“ ‘Wil­helmina’—I knew then that he was in deadly earn­est, for he has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him—‘you know, dear, my ideas of the trust between hus­band and wife: there should be no secret, no con­ceal­ment. I have had a great shock, and when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it was all real or the dream­ing of a mad­man. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our mar­riage.’ For, my dear, we had de­cided to be mar­ried as soon as the form­al­it­ies are com­plete. ‘Are you will­ing, Wil­helmina, to share my ig­nor­ance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know; un­less, in­deed, some sol­emn duty should come upon me to go back to the bit­ter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, re­cor­ded here.’ He fell back ex­hausted, and I put the book un­der his pil­low, and kissed him. I have asked Sister Agatha to beg the Su­per­ior to let our wed­ding be this af­ter­noon, and am wait­ing her reply.

Abraham Van Helsing, MD, D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc.