"'Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet thathe even loves me.' I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quitea light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and tookmine--I think I put them into his--and said in a hearty way:--
"'That's my brave girl. It's better worth being late for a chance ofwinning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don'tcry, my dear. If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to crack; and I take itstanding up. If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well,he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me. Littlegirl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarerthan a lover; it's more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to havea pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won't you give meone kiss? It'll be something to keep off the darkness now and then.You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow--he mustbe a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not lovehim--hasn't spoken yet.' That quite won me, Mina, for it _was_ braveand sweet of him, and noble, too, to a rival--wasn't it?--and he sosad; so I leant over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands inhis, and as he looked down into my face--I am afraid I was blushingvery much--he said:--
"'Little girl, I hold your hand, and you've kissed me, and if thesethings don't make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for yoursweet honesty to me, and good-bye.' He wrung my hand, and taking uphis hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without atear or a quiver or a pause; and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why musta man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about whowould worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I werefree--only I don't want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and Ifeel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it;and I don't wish to tell of the number three till it can all be happy.
"Ever your loving
"/Lucy./
"P.S.--Oh, about number three--I needn't tell you of number three,need I? Besides, it was all so confused; it seemed only a moment fromhis coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he waskissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don't know what I have doneto deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am notungrateful for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover,such a husband, and such a friend.
"Good-bye."
_Dr. Seward's Diary._
(Kept in phonograph.)
_25 April._--Ebb tide in appetite to-day. Cannot eat, cannot rest, sodiary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of emptyfeeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to beworth the doing.... As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thingwas work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who hasafforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint in his ideas, andso unlike the normal lunatic, that I have determined to understand himas well as I can. To-day I seemed to get nearer than ever before to theheart of his mystery.
I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view tomaking myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my mannerof doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed towish to keep him to the point of his madness--a thing which I avoidwith the patients as I would the mouth of hell. (_Mem._, under whatcircumstances would I _not_ avoid the pit of hell?) _Omnia Romaevernalia sunt._ Hell has its price! _verb. sap._ If there be anythingbehind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards_accurately_, so I had better commence to do so, therefore--
R. M. Renfield, aetat 59.--Sanguine temperament; great physicalstrength; morbidly excitable; periods of gloom ending in some fixedidea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperamentitself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplishedfinish; a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish.In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as forthemselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixedpoint the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal: whenduty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount,and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it.
_Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._
"_25 May._
"My dear Art,--
"We've told yarns by the camp-fire in the prairies; and dressed oneanother's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas; and drunkhealths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, andother wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won't you letthis be at my camp-fire to-morrow night? I have no hesitation in askingyou
, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner-party, andthat you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at theKorea, Jack Seward. He's coming, too, and we both want to mingle ourweeps over the wine-cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts tothe happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heartthat God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a heartywelcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own righthand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep toa certain pair of eyes. Come!
"Yours, as ever and always, "/Quincey P. Morris./"
_Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris._
"_26 May._
"Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your earstingle.
"/Art./"
CHAPTER VI.
/Mina Murray's Journal./
_24 July. Whitby._--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter andlovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent inwhich they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, theEsk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes nearthe harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, throughwhich the view seems, somehow, farther away than it really is. Thevalley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are onthe high land on either side you look right across it, unless you arenear enough to see down. The houses of the old town--the side away fromus--are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow,like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruinof Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the sceneof part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is amost noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romanticbits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of thewindows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parishone, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is,to my mind, the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over thetown, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to wherethe headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descendsso steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away,and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of thestonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below.There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; andpeople go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view andenjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself andwork. Indeed, I am writing now, with my book on my knee, and listeningto the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem todo nothing all day but sit up here and talk.
The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wallstretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it,in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs alongoutside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crookedinversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piersthere is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens.
It is nice at high tide; but when the tide is out it shoals away tonothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running betweenbanks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on thisside there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge ofwhich runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end ofit is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in amournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship islost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; heis coming this way....
He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is allgnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he isnearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishingfleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very scepticalperson, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Ladyat the abbey he said very brusquely:--
"I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out.Mind, I don't say they never was, but I do say that they wasn't inmy time. They be all very well for comers and trippers an' the like,but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from Yorkand Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an'lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'dbe bothered tellin' lies to them--even the newspapers, which is full offool-talk." I thought he would be a good person to learn interestingthings from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me somethingabout whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself tobegin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, andsaid:--
"I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My granddaughter doesn't liketo be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time tocrammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of 'em; an', miss, I lackbelly-timber sairly by the clock."