xamining the flowers and
smelling them. Now she threw them down saying, with half laughter,
and half disgust,

"Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me. Why,
these flowers are only common garlic."

To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness,
his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting,

"No trifling with me! I never jest! There is grim purpose in what I
do, and I warn you that you do not thwart me. Take care, for the sake
of others if not for your own." Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she
might well be, he went on more gently, "Oh, little miss, my dear, do
not fear me. I only do for your good, but there is much virtue to you
in those so common flowers. See, I place them myself in your room. I
make myself the wreath that you are to wear. But hush! No telling to
others that make so inquisitive questions. We must obey, and silence
is a part of obedience, and obedience is to bring you strong and well
into loving arms that wait for you. Now sit still a while. Come with
me, friend John, and you shall help me deck the room with my garlic,
which is all the way from Haarlem, where my friend Vanderpool raise
herb in his glass houses all the year. I had to telegraph yesterday,
or they would not have been here."

We went into the room, taking the flowers with us. The Professor's
actions were certainly odd and not to be found in any pharmacopeia
that I ever heard of. First he fastened up the windows and latched
them securely. Next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them
all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that
might get in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp
he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each
side, and round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed
grotesque to me, and presently I said, "Well, Professor, I know you
always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me.
It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were
working some spell to keep out an evil spirit."

"Perhaps I am!" he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath
which Lucy was to wear round her neck.

We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she
was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her
neck. The last words he said to her were,

"Take care you do not disturb it, and even if the room feel close, do
not tonight