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
unwon