that our bones may
lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the
bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which
please the young and gay. I am no longer young, and my heart, through
weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover,
the walls of my castle are broken. The shadows are many, and the wind
breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love
the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I
may." Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else
it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and
saturnine.

Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to pull my papers
together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some
of the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened
naturally to England, as if that map had been much used. On looking
at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining
these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly
where his new estate was situated. The other two were Exeter, and
Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.

It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned. "Aha!" he
said. "Still at your books? Good! But you must not work always.
Come! I am informed that your supper is ready." He took my arm, and
we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on
the table. The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on
his being away from home. But he sat as on the previous night, and
chatted whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening,
and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every
conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting very
late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation
to meet my host's wishes in every way. I was not sleepy, as the long
sleep yesterday had fortified me, but I could not help experiencing
that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is
like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are
near death die generally at the change to dawn or at the turn of the
tide. Anyone who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post,
experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it. All at
once we heard the crow of the cock coming up with preternatural
shrillness through the clear morning air.

Count Dracula, ju