/Mina Harker's Journal./
_29 September._--After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward'sstudy. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him talkingwith some one. As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I knocked atthe door, and on his calling out, "Come in," I entered.
To my intense surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone,and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from thedescription to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was muchinterested.
"I hope I did not keep you waiting," I said; "but I stayed at the dooras I heard you talking, and thought there was some one with you."
"Oh," he replied, with a smile, "I was only entering my diary."
"Your diary?" I asked him in surprise.
"Yes," he answered. "I keep it in this." As he spoke he laid his hand onthe phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out:--
"Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something?"
"Certainly," he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in trainfor speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face.
"The fact is," he began awkwardly, "I only keep my diary in it; and asit is entirely--almost entirely--about my cases, it may be awkward--thatis, I mean----" He stopped, and I tried to help him out of hisembarrassment:--
"You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died;for all that I can know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very,very dear to me."
To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face:--
"Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world!"
"Why not?" I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me.Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse.At length he stammered out:--
"You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of thediary." Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and hesaid with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with thenaivete of a child: "That's quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian!"I could not but smile, at which he grimaced. "I gave myself away thattime!" he said. "But do you know that, although I have kept the diaryfor months past, it never once struck me how I was going to find anyparticular part of it in case I wanted to look it up?" By this time mymind was made up that the diary of a doctor who attended Lucy might havesomething to add to the sum of our knowledge of that terrible Being,and I said boldly:--
"Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on mytypewriter." He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he said:--
"No! no! no! For all the world, I wouldn't let you know that terriblestory!"
Then it was terrible; my intuition was right! For a moment I thought,and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for something orsome opportunity to aid me, they lit on the great batch of typewritingon the table. His eyes caught the look in mine, and, without histhinking, followed their direction. As they saw the parcel he realisedmy meaning.
"You do not know me," I said. "When you have read those papers--myown diary and my husband's also, which I have typed--you will know mebetter. I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart inthis cause; but, of course, you do not know me--yet; and I must notexpect you to trust me so far."
He is certainly a man of noble nature; poor dear Lucy was right abouthim. He stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged inorder a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, andsaid:--
"You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you.But I know you now; and let me say that I should have known you longago. I know that Lucy told you of me; she told me of you too. May I makethe only atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear them--thefirst half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrifyyou; then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In themeantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be betterable to understand certain things." He carried the phonograph himself upto my sitting-room and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn somethingpleasant, I am sure; for it will tell me the other side of a true loveepisode of which I know one side already....
_Dr. Seward's Diary._
_29 September._--I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of JonathanHarker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on withoutthinking. Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announcedinner, so I said: "She is possibly tired; let dinner wait an hour;"and I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker's diary,when she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyeswere flushed with crying. This somehow moved me much. Of late I have hadcause for tears, God knows! but the relief of them was denied me; andnow the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened with recent tears, wentstraight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could:--
"I greatly fear I have distressed you."
"Oh no, not distressed me," she replied, "but I have been more touchedthan I can say by your grief. That is a wonderful machine, but it iscruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart.It was like a soul crying out to
almighty God. No one must hear themspoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out thewords on my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart beat, asI did."
"No one need ever know, shall ever know," I said in a low voice. Shelaid her hand on mine and said very gravely:--
"Ah, but they must!"
"Must! But why?" I asked.
"Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor dear Lucy'sdeath and all that led to it; because in the struggle which we havebefore us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all theknowledge and all the help which we can get. I think that the cylinderswhich you gave me contained more than you intended me to know; but Ican see that there are in your record many lights to this dark mystery.You will let me help, will you not? I know all up to a certain point,and I see already, though your diary only took me to 7 September, howpoor Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was being wrought out.Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor VanHelsing saw us. He is gone to Whitby to get more information, and hewill be here to-morrow to help us. We need have no secrets amongst us;working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger thanif some of us were in the dark." She looked at me so appealingly, and atthe same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing,that I gave in at once to her wishes. "You shall," I said, "do as youlike in the matter. God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terriblethings yet to learn of; but if you have so far travelled on the road topoor Lucy's death, you will not be content, I know, to remain in thedark. Nay, the end--the very end--may give you a gleam of peace. Come,there is dinner. We must keep one another strong for what is before us;we have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten you shall learnthe rest, and I will answer any questions you ask--if there be anythingwhich you do not understand, though it was apparent to us who werepresent."