, and knowing its rarity,
a deadly fear shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved back,
and his exclamation of horror, "Gott in Himmel!" needed no enforcement
from his agonized face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed,
and his iron face was drawn and ashen white. I felt my knees begin to
tremble.

There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly
white and wan-looking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the
gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see
in a corpse after a prolonged illness.

Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his
life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down
again softly.

"Quick!" he said. "Bring the brandy."

I flew to the dining room, and returned with the decanter. He wetted
the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and wrist and
heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonizing
suspense said,

"It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is
undone. We must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now. I
have to call on you yourself this time, friend John." As he spoke, he
was dipping into his bag, and producing the instruments of
transfusion. I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt sleeve.
There was no possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need of
one; and so, without a moment's delay, we began the operation.

After a time, it did not seem a short time either, for the draining
away of one's blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a
terrible feeling, Van Helsing held up a warning finger. "Do not
stir," he said. "But I fear that with growing strength she may wake,
and that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall
precaution take. I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia." He
proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent.

The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly
into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that
I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks
and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel
his own lifeblood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.

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