began to fear, horrible fears. But then came to me the
sense of safety in that ring wherein I stood. I began too, to
think that my imaginings were of the night, and the gloom, and
the unrest that I have gone through, and all the terrible
anxiety. It was as though my memories of all Jonathan's horrid
experience were befooling me. For the snow flakes and the mist
began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a
shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him. And
then the horses cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as
men do in pain. Even the madness of fright was not to them, so
that they could break away. I feared for my dear Madam Mina when
these weird figures drew near and circled round. I looked at her,
but she sat calm, and smiled at me. When I would have stepped to
the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held me back, and
whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low it was.

"No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe!"

I turned to her, and looking in her eyes said, "But you?
It is for you that I fear!"

Whereat she laughed, a laugh low and unreal, and said, "Fear
for me! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from
them than I am," and as I wondered at the meaning of her
words, a puff of wind made the flame leap up, and I see the
red scar on her forehead. Then, alas! I knew. Did I not,
I would soon have learned, for the wheeling figures of mist
and snow came closer, but keeping ever without the Holy
circle. Then they began to materialize till, if God have
not taken away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes.
There were before me in actual flesh the same three women
that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed
his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the bright
hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous
lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina. And as
their laugh came through the silence of the night, they
twined their arms and pointed to her, and said in those so
sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were of the intolerable
sweetness of the water glasses, "Come, sister. Come to us.
Come!"

In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina, and my heart with
gladness leapt like flame. For oh! the terror in her sweet
eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my heart
that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of
them. I seized some of the firewood which was by me, and
holdi