ad, it now
seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from
the evidence of our own eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I
shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had
a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took
the key, opened the vault, and again courteously motioned me to
precede. The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how
unutterably mean looking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing
walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again
forced back the leaden flange, and a shock of surprise and dismay shot
through me.

There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her
funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever,
and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay
redder than before, and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom.

"Is this a juggle?" I said to him.

"Are you convinced now?" said the Professor, in response, and as he
spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled
back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. "See," he went on,
"they are even sharper than before. With this and this," and he
touched one of the canine teeth and that below it, "the little
children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John?"

Once more argumentative hostility woke within me. I could not accept
such an overwhelming idea as he suggested. So, with an attempt to
argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said, "She may have
been placed here since last night."

"Indeed? That is so, and by whom?"

"I do not know. Someone has done it."

"And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would
not look so."

I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to
notice my silence. At any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor
triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman,
raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the
lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said,

"Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded. Here
is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the
vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking, oh, you start. You
do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it later, and in
trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she dies, and
in trance she is UnDead, too.