vade a new land. He was beaten, and
when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he
fled back over the sea to his home. Just as formerly he had fled back
over the Danube from Turkey Land."

"Good, good! Oh, you so clever lady!" said Van Helsing,
enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand. A moment later
he said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sick room
consultation, "Seventy-two only, and in all this excitement. I have
hope."

Turning to her again, he said with keen expectation, "But go on. Go
on! There is more to tell if you will. Be not afraid. John and I
know. I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right. Speak,
without fear!"

"I will try to. But you will forgive me if I seem too egotistical."

"Nay! Fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think."

"Then, as he is criminal he is selfish. And as his intellect is small
and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one
purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the
Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on
being safe, careless of all. So his own selfishness frees my soul
somewhat from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that
dreadful night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great
mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour. And
all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have
used my knowledge for his ends."

The Professor stood up, "He has so used your mind, and by it he has
left us here in Varna, whilst the ship that carried him rushed through
enveloping fog up to Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation
for escaping from us. But his child mind only saw so far. And it may
be that as ever is in God's Providence, the very thing that the evil
doer most reckoned on for his selfish good, turns out to be his
chiefest harm. The hunter is taken in his own snare, as the great
Psalmist says. For now that he think he is free from every trace of
us all, and that he has escaped us with so many hours to him, then his
selfish child brain will whisper him to sleep. He think, too, that as
he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge
of him to you. There is where he fail! That terrible baptism of
blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you
have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise a