se to you. For if your husband suffer, he suffer
within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I
will gladly do all for him that I can, all to make his life strong and
manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are
overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like
to see you so pale, and what he like not where he love, is not to his
good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told
me about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress.
I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think much over what you
have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I
may. And then too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's trouble so
far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now, afterwards you shall
tell me all."

After lunch, when we went back to the drawing room, he said to me,
"And now tell me all about him."

When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear
that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman, that
journal is all so strange, and I hesitated to go on. But he was so
sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I
said,

"Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must
not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a
sort of fever of doubt. You must be kind to me, and not think me
foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things."

He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said, "Oh,
my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I
am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think
little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have
tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life
that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things,
the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane."

"Thank you, thank you a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my
mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is
long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and
Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that
happened. I dare not say anything of it. You will read for yourself
and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind
and tell me what you think."

"I promise," he said as I gave him the papers. "I shall in the
mo