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.Your argument is complete, and if I were free to speak I should not hesitate a moment; but I am not my own master in the matter.I can only ask you to trust me.If I am refused, the responsibility does not rest with me.’ I thought it was now time to end the scene, which was becoming too comically grave, so I went towards the door, simply saying:—‘Come, my friends, we have work to do.Good night.’As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient.He moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he was about to make another homicidal attack.My fears, however, were groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his petition in a moving manner.As he saw that the very excess of his emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old relations, he became still more demonstrative.I glanced at Van Helsing, and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes; so I became a little more fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him that his efforts were unavailing.I had previously seen something of the same constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some request of which at the time he had thought much, such, for instance, as when he wanted a cat; and I was prepared to see the collapse into the same sullen acquiescence on this occasion.My expectation was not realized, for, when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into quite a frantic condition.He threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks and his whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion :—‘Let me entreat you, Dr Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out of this house at once.Send me away how you will and where you will; send keepers with me with whips and chains; let them take me in a strait-waistcoat, manacled and leg-ironed, even to a gaol; but let me go out of this.You don’t know what you do by keeping me here.I am speaking from the depths of my heart—of my very soul.You don’t know whom you wrong, or how; and I may not tell.Woe is me! I may not tell.By all you hold sacred—by all you hold dear—by your love that is lost—by your hope that lives—for the sake of the Almighty, take me out of this and save my soul from guilt! Can’t you hear me, man? Can’t you understand? Will you never learn? Don’t you know that I am sane and earnest now; that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go!’I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so would bring on a fit; so I took him by the hand and raised him up.‘Come,’ I said sternly, ‘no more of this; we have had quite enough already.Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly.’He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments.Then, without a word, he rose and moving over, sat down on the side of the bed.The collapse had come, as on former occasions, just as I had expected.When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a quiet, well-bred voice:—‘You will, I trust, Dr Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later on, that I did what I could to convince you tonight.’CHAPTER XIXJONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL1 October, 5 a.m.I went with the party to the search with an easy mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well.I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work.Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us.We were, I think, all a little upset by the scene with Mr Renfield.When we came away from his room we were silent till we got back to the study.Then Mr Morris said to Dr Seward:—‘Say, Jack, if that man wasn’t attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw.I’m not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a chance.’ Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr Van Helsing added:—‘Friend John, you know more of lunatics that I do, and I’m glad of it, for I fear that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last hysterical outburst have given him free.But we live and learn, and in our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say.All is best as they are.’ Dr Seward seemed to answer them both in a dreamy kind of way:—‘I don’t know but that I agree with you
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