g, let me
tell you this. It is out of the lore and experience of the ancients
and of all those who have studied the powers of the UnDead. When they
become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality.
They cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and
multiplying the evils of the world. For all that die from the preying
of the Undead become themselves Undead, and prey on their kind. And
so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone
thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which
you know of before poor Lucy die, or again, last night when you open
your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become
nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would for all time
make more of those Un-Deads that so have filled us with horror. The
career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those children
whose blood she sucked are not as yet so much the worse, but if she
lives on, UnDead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power
over them they come to her, and so she draw their blood with that so
wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease. The tiny
wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their play
unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when
this now UnDead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the
poor lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working
wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it
by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my
friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow
that sets her free. To this I am willing, but is there none amongst
us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in
the silence of the night when sleep is not, 'It was my hand that sent
her to the stars. It was the hand of him that loved her best, the
hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to
choose?' Tell me if there be such a one amongst us?"

We all looked at Arthur. He saw too, what we all did, the infinite
kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would
restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory. He stepped
forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was
as pale as snow, "My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I
thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!