Dr. Seward's Diary

"If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her
fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon." He
went on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied
vigour.

Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to
be of some effect. Lucy's heart beat a trifle more audibly to the
stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. Van Helsing's
face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her
in a hot sheet to dry her he said to me, "The first gain is ours!
Check to the King!"

We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and
laid her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat. I
noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her
throat. She was still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not
worse than, we had ever seen her.

Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her
and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned
me out of the room.

"We must consult as to what is to be done," he said as we descended
the stairs. In the hall he opened the dining room door, and we passed
in, he closing the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been
opened, but the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the
etiquette of death which the British woman of the lower classes always
rigidly observes. The room was, therefore, dimly dark. It was,
however, light enough for our purposes. Van Helsing's sternness was
somewhat relieved by a look of perplexity. He was evidently torturing
his mind about something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke.