l with it as you will.
I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy's papers and
letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of
which, be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I
took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand
might touch them, no strange eye look through words into her soul. I
shall keep them, if I may. Even you may not see them yet, but I shall
keep them safe. No word shall be lost, and in the good time I shall
give them back to you. It is a hard thing that I ask, but you will do
it, will you not, for Lucy's sake?"

Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self, "Dr. Van Helsing, you
may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I am doing what my
dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you with questions
till the time comes."

The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly, "And you are right.
There will be pain for us all, but it will not be all pain, nor will
this pain be the last. We and you too, you most of all, dear boy,
will have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet.
But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all
will be well!"

I slept on a sofa in Arthur's room that night. Van Helsing did not go
to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patroling the house, and was
never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn
with the wild garlic flowers, which sent through the odour of lily and
rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night.

MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

22 September.--In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping. It seems
only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much between
then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and no news
of him, and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner,
rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and
Jonathan with another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask
me about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthand, see what
unexpected prosperity does for us, so it may be as well to freshen it
up again with an exercise anyhow.

The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only
ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from
Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John
Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I
stood hand in hand, and we felt that o