From *Dracula*, from the diary of Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker's wife. Van Helsing is giving a long speech about vampires.

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> “There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they exist. ... What say you?”
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> Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan **had taken** my hand. I feared, oh so much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch—so strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man’s hand can speak for itself; it does not even need a woman’s love to hear its music.
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> When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I in his; there was no need for speaking between us.
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> “I answer for Mina and myself,” he said.
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I wonder why the author used the past perfect tense ("had taken") in the first sentence after Van Helsing's speech. The past perfect tense is used to refer to a past event happening before another past event. "Had taken" is the first event. What is the second event?