consult. For so if time be long you may be delayed. And it
will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make
report."

"And I," said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than
she had been for many a long day, "shall try to be of use in all ways,
and shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is
shifting from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have
been of late!"

The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to
realize the significance of her words. But Van Helsing and I, turning
to each other, met each a grave and troubled glance. We said nothing
at the time, however.

When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs.
Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of
Harker's journal at the Castle. She went away to get it.

When the door was shut upon her he said to me, "We mean the same!
Speak out!"

"Here is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may
deceive us."

"Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript?"

"No!" said I, "unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me
alone."

"You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell
you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a great, a terrible,
risk. But I believe it is right. In the moment when Madam Mina said
those words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration came to
me. In the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to
read her mind. Or more like he took her to see him in his earth box
in the ship with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of
sun. He learn then that we are here, for she have more to tell in her
open life with eyes to see ears to hear than he, shut as he is, in his
coffin box. Now he make his most effort to escape us. At present he
want her not.

"He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his
call. But he cut her off, take her, as he can do, out of his own
power, that so she come not to him. Ah! There I have hope that our
man brains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the
grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his
tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only
work selfish and therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina. Not a word
to her of her trance! She knows it not, and it would overwhelm her
and make despair just when we wan