Dr. Seward's Diary -- Part Three

For a while sheer anger mastered me. It was as if he had during her
life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I
said to him, "Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?"

He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his
face calmed me at once. "Would I were!" he said. "Madness were easy
to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend, why, think
you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell so simple a
thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was
it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, now so
late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful
death? Ah no!"

"Forgive me," said I.

He went on, "My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the
breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady. But
even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at
once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we
have always believed the 'no' of it. It is more hard still to accept
so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy. Tonight I go
to prove it. Dare you come with me?"