Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Count's terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief.
Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room.
Van Helsing whispered to me, "Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself.
I must wake him!"
He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heart breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window.
There was much moonshine, and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this.
But at the instant I heard Harker's quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness, and turned to the bed.
On his face, as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement.
He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up.
His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him. Instantly, however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook.
"In God's name what does this mean?" Harker cried out.
"Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened?
What is wrong? Mina, dear what is it? What does that blood mean?
My God, my God! Has it come to this!" And, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly together."Good God help us!
Help her! Oh, help her!"
With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on his clothes, all the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion.
"What has happened? Tell me all about it!" he cried without pausing.
"Dr. Van Helsing you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her.
It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for him!"
His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him. Instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried out.
"No! No! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough tonight, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must stay with me.
Stay with these friends who will watch over you!" Her expression became frantic as she spoke. And, he yielding to her, she pulled him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him fiercely.
Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness, "Do not fear, my dear.
We are here, and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can approach.
You are safe for tonight, and we must be calm and take counsel together."
She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her husband's breast.
When she raised it, his white nightrobe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in the neck had sent forth drops.
The instant she saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs.
"Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more.
Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear."
To this he spoke out resolutely, "Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you.
And I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!"
He put out his arms and folded her to his breast. And for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils.
His mouth was set as steel.
After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous power to the utmost.
"And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad fact.
Tell me all that has been."
I told him exactly what had happened and he listened with seeming impassiveness, but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast.
It interested me, even at that moment, to see that whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair.
Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door.
They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from themselves.
So on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming answered.
"I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms.
I looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had gone.
He had, however. . ." He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed.
Van Helsing said gravely, "Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all.
Tell freely!"
So Art went on, "He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes.
The cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the wax had helped the flames."
Here I interrupted. "Thank God there is the other copy in the safe!"
His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on.
"I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him.