When the wire was despatched he had a cup of tea; over it he told me of
a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten
copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harker s diary at Whitby. Take these, he
said, and study them well. When I have returned you will be master of
all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep
them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your
faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of to-day. What
is here told, he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of
papers as he spoke, may be the beginning of the end to you and me and
many another; or it may sound the knell of the Un-Dead who walk the
earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind; and if you can add in
any way to the story here told do so, for it is all-important. You have
kept diary of all these so strange things; is it not so? Yes! Then we
shall go through all these together when we meet. He then made ready
for his departure, and shortly after drove off to Liverpool Street. I
took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before
the train came in.
The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival
platforms; and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my
guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and,
after a quick glance, said: Dr. Seward, is it not?
And you are Mrs. Harker! I answered at once; whereupon she held out
her hand.
I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy; but---- She stopped
suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face.
The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it
was a tacit answer to her own. I got her luggage, which included a
typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had
sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting-room and bedroom
prepared at once for Mrs. Harker.
In due time we arrived. She knew, of course, that the place was a
lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a shudder
when we entered.
She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study, as
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