I knew, as he knew, that it was a stand-up fight with death, and in a pause told him so.

He answered me in a way that I did not understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear.
"If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon." He went on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied vigour.
Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to be of some effect.

Lucy's heart beat a trifle more audibly to the stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement.

Van Helsing's face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in a hot sheet to dry her he said to me, "The first gain is ours! Check to the King!" We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and laid her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat.

I noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat.