Dracula

I may as well
write. I am too agitated to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such
an agonising experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my
diary... Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible
sense of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me. The
room was dark, so I could not see Lucy's bed; I stole across and
felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match, and found that she was
not in the room. The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left
it. I feared to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill
lately, so threw on some clothes and got ready to look for her. As I
was leaving the room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give
me some clue to her dreaming intention. Dressing-gown would mean
house; dress, outside. Dressing-gown and dress were both in their
places. "Thank God," I said to myself, "she cannot be far, as she is
only in her nightdress." I ran downstairs and looked in the
sitting-room. Not there! Then I looked in all the other open rooms
of the house, with an ever-growing fear chilling my heart. Finally I
came to the hall-door and found it open. It was not wide open, but the
catch of the lock had not caught. The people of the house are
careful to lock the door every night, so I feared that Lucy must
have gone out as she was. There was no time to think of what might
happen; a vague, overmastering fear obscured all details. I took a
big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I was in
the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North
Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected.
At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the
harbour to the East Cliff, in the hope or fear- I don't know which- of
seeing Lucy in our favourite seat. There was a bright full moon,
with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a
fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a
moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured
St. Mary's Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I
could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view; and as the edge
of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the
church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my
expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our
favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining
figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to
see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately; but it