"I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin
to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were
with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary--you need not look
surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and was in
imitation of you--and in that diary she traces by inference certain
things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In
great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much
kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember."
"I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it."
"Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always
so with young ladies."
"No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you
if you like."
"Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour." I
could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit--I suppose it is
some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our
