l I hope
read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory forever, come
what may!"

"But oh, my dear one," he pleaded, "death is afar off from you."

"Nay," she said, holding up a warning hand. "I am deeper in death at
this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me!"

"Oh, my wife, must I read it?" he said, before he began.

"It would comfort me, my husband!" was all she said, and he began to
read when she had got the book ready.

How can I, how could anyone, tell of that strange scene, its
solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror, and withal, its
sweetness. Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of
bitter truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to
the heart had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends
kneeling round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender
passion of her husband's voice, as in tones so broken and emotional
that often he had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service
from the Burial of the Dead. I cannot go on . . . words . . . and
v-voices . . . f-fail m-me!

She was right in her instinct. Strange as it was, bizarre as it may
hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time,
it comforted us much. And the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker's
coming relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of
despair to any of us as we had dreaded.

JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

15 October, Varna.--We left Charing Cross on the morning of the 12th,
got to Paris the same night, and took the places secured for us in the
Orient Express. We traveled night and day, arriving here at about
five o'clock. Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any
telegram had arrived for him, whilst the rest of us came on to this
hotel, "the Odessus." The journey may have had incidents. I was,
however, too eager to get on, to care for them. Until the Czarina
Catherine comes into port there will be no interest for me in anything
in the wide world. Thank God! Mina is well, and looks to be getting
stronger. Her colour is coming back. She sleeps a great deal.
Throughout the journey she slept nearly all the time. Before sunrise
and sunset, however, she is very wakeful and alert. And it has become
a habit for Van Helsing to hypnotize her at such times. At first,
some effort was needed, and he had to make many passes. But now, she
seems to yield at once, as if by habit, and scarcel