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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Great God Pan, by Arthur Machen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Great God Pan
+
+Author: Arthur Machen
+
+Release Date: January, 1996 [eBook #389]
+[Most recently updated: November 10, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Brandi Weed. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT GOD PAN ***
+
+
+
+
+The Great God Pan
+
+by Arthur Machen
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I. THE EXPERIMENT
+ CHAPTER II. MR. CLARKE’S MEMOIRS
+ CHAPTER III. THE CITY OF RESURRECTIONS
+ CHAPTER IV. THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET
+ CHAPTER V. THE LETTER OF ADVICE
+ CHAPTER VI. THE SUICIDES
+ CHAPTER VII. THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE FRAGMENTS
+
+
+
+
+I
+THE EXPERIMENT
+
+
+“I am glad you came, Clarke; very glad indeed. I was not sure you could
+spare the time.”
+
+“I was able to make arrangements for a few days; things are not very
+lively just now. But have you no misgivings, Raymond? Is it absolutely
+safe?”
+
+The two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr. Raymond’s
+house. The sun still hung above the western mountain-line, but it shone
+with a dull red glow that cast no shadows, and all the air was quiet; a
+sweet breath came from the great wood on the hillside above, and with
+it, at intervals, the soft murmuring call of the wild doves. Below, in
+the long lovely valley, the river wound in and out between the lonely
+hills, and, as the sun hovered and vanished into the west, a faint
+mist, pure white, began to rise from the hills. Dr. Raymond turned
+sharply to his friend.
+
+“Safe? Of course it is. In itself the operation is a perfectly simple
+one; any surgeon could do it.”
+
+“And there is no danger at any other stage?”
+
+“None; absolutely no physical danger whatsoever, I give you my word.
+You are always timid, Clarke, always; but you know my history. I have
+devoted myself to transcendental medicine for the last twenty years. I
+have heard myself called quack and charlatan and impostor, but all the
+while I knew I was on the right path. Five years ago I reached the
+goal, and since then every day has been a preparation for what we shall
+do tonight.”
+
+“I should like to believe it is all true.” Clarke knit his brows, and
+looked doubtfully at Dr. Raymond. “Are you perfectly sure, Raymond,
+that your theory is not a phantasmagoria—a splendid vision, certainly,
+but a mere vision after all?”
+
+Dr. Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He was a
+middle-aged man, gaunt and thin, of a pale yellow complexion, but as he
+answered Clarke and faced him, there was a flush on his cheek.
+
+“Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following after
+hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchard, the fields of
+ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You
+see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that
+all these things—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky
+to the solid ground beneath our feet—I say that all these are but
+dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes.
+There _is_ a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision,
+beyond these ‘chases in Arras, dreams in a career,’ beyond them all as
+beyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted
+that veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted
+this very night from before another’s eyes. You may think this all
+strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients
+knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan.”
+
+Clarke shivered; the white mist gathering over the river was chilly.
+
+“It is wonderful indeed,” he said. “We are standing on the brink of a
+strange world, Raymond, if what you say is true. I suppose the knife is
+absolutely necessary?”
+
+“Yes; a slight lesion in the grey matter, that is all; a trifling
+rearrangement of certain cells, a microscopical alteration that would
+escape the attention of ninety-nine brain specialists out of a hundred.
+I don’t want to bother you with ‘shop,’ Clarke; I might give you a mass
+of technical detail which would sound very imposing, and would leave
+you as enlightened as you are now. But I suppose you have read,
+casually, in out-of-the-way corners of your paper, that immense strides
+have been made recently in the physiology of the brain. I saw a
+paragraph the other day about Digby’s theory, and Browne Faber’s
+discoveries. Theories and discoveries! Where they are standing now, I
+stood fifteen years ago, and I need not tell you that I have not been
+standing still for the last fifteen years. It will be enough if I say
+that five years ago I made the discovery that I alluded to when I said
+that ten years ago I reached the goal. After years of labour, after
+years of toiling and groping in the dark, after days and nights of
+disappointments and sometimes of despair, in which I used now and then
+to tremble and grow cold with the thought that perhaps there were
+others seeking for what I sought, at last, after so long, a pang of
+sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I knew the long journey was at an end.
+By what seemed then and still seems a chance, the suggestion of a
+moment’s idle thought followed up upon familiar lines and paths that I
+had tracked a hundred times already, the great truth burst upon me, and
+I saw, mapped out in lines of sight, a whole world, a sphere unknown;
+continents and islands, and great oceans in which no ship has sailed
+(to my belief) since a Man first lifted up his eyes and beheld the sun,
+and the stars of heaven, and the quiet earth beneath. You will think
+this all high-flown language, Clarke, but it is hard to be literal. And
+yet; I do not know whether what I am hinting at cannot be set forth in
+plain and lonely terms. For instance, this world of ours is pretty well
+girded now with the telegraph wires and cables; thought, with something
+less than the speed of thought, flashes from sunrise to sunset, from
+north to south, across the floods and the desert places. Suppose that
+an electrician of today were suddenly to perceive that he and his
+friends have merely been playing with pebbles and mistaking them for
+the foundations of the world; suppose that such a man saw uttermost
+space lie open before the current, and words of men flash forth to the
+sun and beyond the sun into the systems beyond, and the voice of
+articulate-speaking men echo in the waste void that bounds our thought.
+As analogies go, that is a pretty good analogy of what I have done; you
+can understand now a little of what I felt as I stood here one evening;
+it was a summer evening, and the valley looked much as it does now; I
+stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable gulf
+that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter and the
+world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim before me, and
+in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown
+shore, and the abyss was spanned. You may look in Browne Faber’s book,
+if you like, and you will find that to the present day men of science
+are unable to account for the presence, or to specify the functions of
+a certain group of nerve-cells in the brain. That group is, as it were,
+land to let, a mere waste place for fanciful theories. I am not in the
+position of Browne Faber and the specialists, I am perfectly instructed
+as to the possible functions of those nerve-centers in the scheme of
+things. With a touch I can bring them into play, with a touch, I say, I
+can set free the current, with a touch I can complete the communication
+between this world of sense and—we shall be able to finish the sentence
+later on. Yes, the knife is necessary; but think what that knife will
+effect. It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and probably,
+for the first time since man was made, a spirit will gaze on a
+spirit-world. Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!”
+
+“But you remember what you wrote to me? I thought it would be requisite
+that she—”
+
+He whispered the rest into the doctor’s ear.
+
+“Not at all, not at all. That is nonsense. I assure you. Indeed, it is
+better as it is; I am quite certain of that.”
+
+“Consider the matter well, Raymond. It’s a great responsibility.
+Something might go wrong; you would be a miserable man for the rest of
+your days.”
+
+“No, I think not, even if the worst happened. As you know, I rescued
+Mary from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation, when she was
+a child; I think her life is mine, to use as I see fit. Come, it’s
+getting late; we had better go in.”
+
+Dr. Raymond led the way into the house, through the hall, and down a
+long dark passage. He took a key from his pocket and opened a heavy
+door, and motioned Clarke into his laboratory. It had once been a
+billiard-room, and was lighted by a glass dome in the centre of the
+ceiling, whence there still shone a sad grey light on the figure of the
+doctor as he lit a lamp with a heavy shade and placed it on a table in
+the middle of the room.
+
+Clarke looked about him. Scarcely a foot of wall remained bare; there
+were shelves all around laden with bottles and phials of all shapes and
+colours, and at one end stood a little Chippendale book-case. Raymond
+pointed to this.
+
+“You see that parchment Oswald Crollius? He was one of the first to
+show me the way, though I don’t think he ever found it himself. That is
+a strange saying of his: ‘In every grain of wheat there lies hidden the
+soul of a star.’”
+
+There was not much furniture in the laboratory. The table in the
+centre, a stone slab with a drain in one corner, the two armchairs on
+which Raymond and Clarke were sitting; that was all, except an
+odd-looking chair at the furthest end of the room. Clarke looked at it,
+and raised his eyebrows.
+
+“Yes, that is the chair,” said Raymond. “We may as well place it in
+position.” He got up and wheeled the chair to the light, and began
+raising and lowering it, letting down the seat, setting the back at
+various angles, and adjusting the foot-rest. It looked comfortable
+enough, and Clarke passed his hand over the soft green velvet, as the
+doctor manipulated the levers.
+
+“Now, Clarke, make yourself quite comfortable. I have a couple hours’
+work before me; I was obliged to leave certain matters to the last.”
+
+Raymond went to the stone slab, and Clarke watched him drearily as he
+bent over a row of phials and lit the flame under the crucible. The
+doctor had a small hand-lamp, shaded as the larger one, on a ledge
+above his apparatus, and Clarke, who sat in the shadows, looked down at
+the great shadowy room, wondering at the bizarre effects of brilliant
+light and undefined darkness contrasting with one another. Soon he
+became conscious of an odd odour, at first the merest suggestion of
+odour, in the room, and as it grew more decided he felt surprised that
+he was not reminded of the chemist’s shop or the surgery. Clarke found
+himself idly endeavouring to analyse the sensation, and half conscious,
+he began to think of a day, fifteen years ago, that he had spent
+roaming through the woods and meadows near his own home. It was a
+burning day at the beginning of August, the heat had dimmed the
+outlines of all things and all distances with a faint mist, and people
+who observed the thermometer spoke of an abnormal register, of a
+temperature that was almost tropical. Strangely that wonderful hot day
+of the fifties rose up again in Clarke’s imagination; the sense of
+dazzling all-pervading sunlight seemed to blot out the shadows and the
+lights of the laboratory, and he felt again the heated air beating in
+gusts about his face, saw the shimmer rising from the turf, and heard
+the myriad murmur of the summer.
+
+“I hope the smell doesn’t annoy you, Clarke; there’s nothing
+unwholesome about it. It may make you a bit sleepy, that’s all.”
+
+Clarke heard the words quite distinctly, and knew that Raymond was
+speaking to him, but for the life of him he could not rouse himself
+from his lethargy. He could only think of the lonely walk he had taken
+fifteen years ago; it was his last look at the fields and woods he had
+known since he was a child, and now it all stood out in brilliant
+light, as a picture, before him. Above all there came to his nostrils
+the scent of summer, the smell of flowers mingled, and the odour of the
+woods, of cool shaded places, deep in the green depths, drawn forth by
+the sun’s heat; and the scent of the good earth, lying as it were with
+arms stretched forth, and smiling lips, overpowered all. His fancies
+made him wander, as he had wandered long ago, from the fields into the
+wood, tracking a little path between the shining undergrowth of
+beech-trees; and the trickle of water dropping from the limestone rock
+sounded as a clear melody in the dream. Thoughts began to go astray and
+to mingle with other thoughts; the beech alley was transformed to a
+path between ilex-trees, and here and there a vine climbed from bough
+to bough, and sent up waving tendrils and drooped with purple grapes,
+and the sparse grey-green leaves of a wild olive-tree stood out against
+the dark shadows of the ilex. Clarke, in the deep folds of dream, was
+conscious that the path from his father’s house had led him into an
+undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of it
+all, when suddenly, in place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an
+infinite silence seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed,
+and for a moment in time he stood face to face there with a presence,
+that was neither man nor beast, neither the living nor the dead, but
+all things mingled, the form of all things but devoid of all form. And
+in that moment, the sacrament of body and soul was dissolved, and a
+voice seemed to cry “Let us go hence,” and then the darkness of
+darkness beyond the stars, the darkness of everlasting.
+
+When Clarke woke up with a start he saw Raymond pouring a few drops of
+some oily fluid into a green phial, which he stoppered tightly.
+
+“You have been dozing,” he said; “the journey must have tired you out.
+It is done now. I am going to fetch Mary; I shall be back in ten
+minutes.”
+
+Clarke lay back in his chair and wondered. It seemed as if he had but
+passed from one dream into another. He half expected to see the walls
+of the laboratory melt and disappear, and to awake in London,
+shuddering at his own sleeping fancies. But at last the door opened,
+and the doctor returned, and behind him came a girl of about seventeen,
+dressed all in white. She was so beautiful that Clarke did not wonder
+at what the doctor had written to him. She was blushing now over face
+and neck and arms, but Raymond seemed unmoved.
+
+“Mary,” he said, “the time has come. You are quite free. Are you
+willing to trust yourself to me entirely?”
+
+“Yes, dear.”
+
+“Do you hear that, Clarke? You are my witness. Here is the chair, Mary.
+It is quite easy. Just sit in it and lean back. Are you ready?”
+
+“Yes, dear, quite ready. Give me a kiss before you begin.”
+
+The doctor stooped and kissed her mouth, kindly enough. “Now shut your
+eyes,” he said. The girl closed her eyelids, as if she were tired, and
+longed for sleep, and Raymond placed the green phial to her nostrils.
+Her face grew white, whiter than her dress; she struggled faintly, and
+then with the feeling of submission strong within her, crossed her arms
+upon her breast as a little child about to say her prayers. The bright
+light of the lamp fell full upon her, and Clarke watched changes
+fleeting over her face as the changes of the hills when the summer
+clouds float across the sun. And then she lay all white and still, and
+the doctor turned up one of her eyelids. She was quite unconscious.
+Raymond pressed hard on one of the levers and the chair instantly sank
+back. Clarke saw him cutting away a circle, like a tonsure, from her
+hair, and the lamp was moved nearer. Raymond took a small glittering
+instrument from a little case, and Clarke turned away shudderingly.
+When he looked again the doctor was binding up the wound he had made.
+
+“She will awake in five minutes.” Raymond was still perfectly cool.
+“There is nothing more to be done; we can only wait.”
+
+The minutes passed slowly; they could hear a slow, heavy, ticking.
+There was an old clock in the passage. Clarke felt sick and faint; his
+knees shook beneath him, he could hardly stand.
+
+Suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long-drawn sigh, and suddenly
+did the colour that had vanished return to the girl’s cheeks, and
+suddenly her eyes opened. Clarke quailed before them. They shone with
+an awful light, looking far away, and a great wonder fell upon her
+face, and her hands stretched out as if to touch what was invisible;
+but in an instant the wonder faded, and gave place to the most awful
+terror. The muscles of her face were hideously convulsed, she shook
+from head to foot; the soul seemed struggling and shuddering within the
+house of flesh. It was a horrible sight, and Clarke rushed forward, as
+she fell shrieking to the floor.
+
+Three days later Raymond took Clarke to Mary’s bedside. She was lying
+wide-awake, rolling her head from side to side, and grinning vacantly.
+
+“Yes,” said the doctor, still quite cool, “it is a great pity; she is a
+hopeless idiot. However, it could not be helped; and, after all, she
+has seen the Great God Pan.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+MR. CLARKE’S MEMOIRS
+
+
+Mr. Clarke, the gentleman chosen by Dr. Raymond to witness the strange
+experiment of the god Pan, was a person in whose character caution and
+curiosity were oddly mingled; in his sober moments he thought of the
+unusual and eccentric with undisguised aversion, and yet, deep in his
+heart, there was a wide-eyed inquisitiveness with respect to all the
+more recondite and esoteric elements in the nature of men. The latter
+tendency had prevailed when he accepted Raymond’s invitation, for
+though his considered judgment had always repudiated the doctor’s
+theories as the wildest nonsense, yet he secretly hugged a belief in
+fantasy, and would have rejoiced to see that belief confirmed. The
+horrors that he witnessed in the dreary laboratory were to a certain
+extent salutary; he was conscious of being involved in an affair not
+altogether reputable, and for many years afterwards he clung bravely to
+the commonplace, and rejected all occasions of occult investigation.
+Indeed, on some homeopathic principle, he for some time attended the
+seances of distinguished mediums, hoping that the clumsy tricks of
+these gentlemen would make him altogether disgusted with mysticism of
+every kind, but the remedy, though caustic, was not efficacious. Clarke
+knew that he still pined for the unseen, and little by little, the old
+passion began to reassert itself, as the face of Mary, shuddering and
+convulsed with an unknown terror, faded slowly from his memory.
+Occupied all day in pursuits both serious and lucrative, the temptation
+to relax in the evening was too great, especially in the winter months,
+when the fire cast a warm glow over his snug bachelor apartment, and a
+bottle of some choice claret stood ready by his elbow. His dinner
+digested, he would make a brief pretence of reading the evening paper,
+but the mere catalogue of news soon palled upon him, and Clarke would
+find himself casting glances of warm desire in the direction of an old
+Japanese bureau, which stood at a pleasant distance from the hearth.
+Like a boy before a jam-closet, for a few minutes he would hover
+indecisive, but lust always prevailed, and Clarke ended by drawing up
+his chair, lighting a candle, and sitting down before the bureau. Its
+pigeon-holes and drawers teemed with documents on the most morbid
+subjects, and in the well reposed a large manuscript volume, in which
+he had painfully entered the gems of his collection. Clarke had a fine
+contempt for published literature; the most ghostly story ceased to
+interest him if it happened to be printed; his sole pleasure was in the
+reading, compiling, and rearranging what he called his “Memoirs to
+prove the Existence of the Devil,” and engaged in this pursuit the
+evening seemed to fly and the night appeared too short.
+
+On one particular evening, an ugly December night, black with fog, and
+raw with frost, Clarke hurried over his dinner, and scarcely deigned to
+observe his customary ritual of taking up the paper and laying it down
+again. He paced two or three times up and down the room, and opened the
+bureau, stood still a moment, and sat down. He leant back, absorbed in
+one of those dreams to which he was subject, and at length drew out his
+book, and opened it at the last entry. There were three or four pages
+densely covered with Clarke’s round, set penmanship, and at the
+beginning he had written in a somewhat larger hand:
+
+Singular Narrative told me by my Friend, Dr. Phillips. He assures me
+that all the facts related therein are strictly and wholly True, but
+refuses to give either the Surnames of the Persons Concerned, or the
+Place where these Extraordinary Events occurred.
+
+
+Mr. Clarke began to read over the account for the tenth time, glancing
+now and then at the pencil notes he had made when it was told him by
+his friend. It was one of his humours to pride himself on a certain
+literary ability; he thought well of his style, and took pains in
+arranging the circumstances in dramatic order. He read the following
+story:—
+
+The persons concerned in this statement are Helen V., who, if she is
+still alive, must now be a woman of twenty-three, Rachel M., since
+deceased, who was a year younger than the above, and Trevor W., an
+imbecile, aged eighteen. These persons were at the period of the story
+inhabitants of a village on the borders of Wales, a place of some
+importance in the time of the Roman occupation, but now a scattered
+hamlet, of not more than five hundred souls. It is situated on rising
+ground, about six miles from the sea, and is sheltered by a large and
+picturesque forest.
+
+Some eleven years ago, Helen V. came to the village under rather
+peculiar circumstances. It is understood that she, being an orphan, was
+adopted in her infancy by a distant relative, who brought her up in his
+own house until she was twelve years old. Thinking, however, that it
+would be better for the child to have playmates of her own age, he
+advertised in several local papers for a good home in a comfortable
+farmhouse for a girl of twelve, and this advertisement was answered by
+Mr. R., a well-to-do farmer in the above-mentioned village. His
+references proving satisfactory, the gentleman sent his adopted
+daughter to Mr. R., with a letter, in which he stipulated that the girl
+should have a room to herself, and stated that her guardians need be at
+no trouble in the matter of education, as she was already sufficiently
+educated for the position in life which she would occupy. In fact, Mr.
+R. was given to understand that the girl be allowed to find her own
+occupations and to spend her time almost as she liked. Mr. R. duly met
+her at the nearest station, a town seven miles away from his house, and
+seems to have remarked nothing extraordinary about the child except
+that she was reticent as to her former life and her adopted father. She
+was, however, of a very different type from the inhabitants of the
+village; her skin was a pale, clear olive, and her features were
+strongly marked, and of a somewhat foreign character. She appears to
+have settled down easily enough into farmhouse life, and became a
+favourite with the children, who sometimes went with her on her rambles
+in the forest, for this was her amusement. Mr. R. states that he has
+known her to go out by herself directly after their early breakfast,
+and not return till after dusk, and that, feeling uneasy at a young
+girl being out alone for so many hours, he communicated with her
+adopted father, who replied in a brief note that Helen must do as she
+chose. In the winter, when the forest paths are impassable, she spent
+most of her time in her bedroom, where she slept alone, according to
+the instructions of her relative. It was on one of these expeditions to
+the forest that the first of the singular incidents with which this
+girl is connected occurred, the date being about a year after her
+arrival at the village. The preceding winter had been remarkably
+severe, the snow drifting to a great depth, and the frost continuing
+for an unexampled period, and the summer following was as noteworthy
+for its extreme heat. On one of the very hottest days in this summer,
+Helen V. left the farmhouse for one of her long rambles in the forest,
+taking with her, as usual, some bread and meat for lunch. She was seen
+by some men in the fields making for the old Roman Road, a green
+causeway which traverses the highest part of the wood, and they were
+astonished to observe that the girl had taken off her hat, though the
+heat of the sun was already tropical. As it happened, a labourer,
+Joseph W. by name, was working in the forest near the Roman Road, and
+at twelve o’clock his little son, Trevor, brought the man his dinner of
+bread and cheese. After the meal, the boy, who was about seven years
+old at the time, left his father at work, and, as he said, went to look
+for flowers in the wood, and the man, who could hear him shouting with
+delight at his discoveries, felt no uneasiness. Suddenly, however, he
+was horrified at hearing the most dreadful screams, evidently the
+result of great terror, proceeding from the direction in which his son
+had gone, and he hastily threw down his tools and ran to see what had
+happened. Tracing his path by the sound, he met the little boy, who was
+running headlong, and was evidently terribly frightened, and on
+questioning him the man elicited that after picking a posy of flowers
+he felt tired, and lay down on the grass and fell asleep. He was
+suddenly awakened, as he stated, by a peculiar noise, a sort of singing
+he called it, and on peeping through the branches he saw Helen V.
+playing on the grass with a “strange naked man,” who he seemed unable
+to describe more fully. He said he felt dreadfully frightened and ran
+away crying for his father. Joseph W. proceeded in the direction
+indicated by his son, and found Helen V. sitting on the grass in the
+middle of a glade or open space left by charcoal burners. He angrily
+charged her with frightening his little boy, but she entirely denied
+the accusation and laughed at the child’s story of a “strange man,” to
+which he himself did not attach much credence. Joseph W. came to the
+conclusion that the boy had woke up with a sudden fright, as children
+sometimes do, but Trevor persisted in his story, and continued in such
+evident distress that at last his father took him home, hoping that his
+mother would be able to soothe him. For many weeks, however, the boy
+gave his parents much anxiety; he became nervous and strange in his
+manner, refusing to leave the cottage by himself, and constantly
+alarming the household by waking in the night with cries of “The man in
+the wood! father! father!”
+
+In course of time, however, the impression seemed to have worn off, and
+about three months later he accompanied his father to the home of a
+gentleman in the neighborhood, for whom Joseph W. occasionally did
+work. The man was shown into the study, and the little boy was left
+sitting in the hall, and a few minutes later, while the gentleman was
+giving W. his instructions, they were both horrified by a piercing
+shriek and the sound of a fall, and rushing out they found the child
+lying senseless on the floor, his face contorted with terror. The
+doctor was immediately summoned, and after some examination he
+pronounced the child to be suffering form a kind of fit, apparently
+produced by a sudden shock. The boy was taken to one of the bedrooms,
+and after some time recovered consciousness, but only to pass into a
+condition described by the medical man as one of violent hysteria. The
+doctor exhibited a strong sedative, and in the course of two hours
+pronounced him fit to walk home, but in passing through the hall the
+paroxysms of fright returned and with additional violence. The father
+perceived that the child was pointing at some object, and heard the old
+cry, “The man in the wood,” and looking in the direction indicated saw
+a stone head of grotesque appearance, which had been built into the
+wall above one of the doors. It seems the owner of the house had
+recently made alterations in his premises, and on digging the
+foundations for some offices, the men had found a curious head,
+evidently of the Roman period, which had been placed in the manner
+described. The head is pronounced by the most experienced
+archaeologists of the district to be that of a faun or satyr.[*]
+
+[* Dr. Phillips tells me that he has seen the head in question, and
+assures me that he has never received such a vivid presentment of
+intense evil.]
+
+
+From whatever cause arising, this second shock seemed too severe for
+the boy Trevor, and at the present date he suffers from a weakness of
+intellect, which gives but little promise of amending. The matter
+caused a good deal of sensation at the time, and the girl Helen was
+closely questioned by Mr. R., but to no purpose, she steadfastly
+denying that she had frightened or in any way molested Trevor.
+
+The second event with which this girl’s name is connected took place
+about six years ago, and is of a still more extraordinary character.
+
+At the beginning of the summer of 1882, Helen contracted a friendship
+of a peculiarly intimate character with Rachel M., the daughter of a
+prosperous farmer in the neighbourhood. This girl, who was a year
+younger than Helen, was considered by most people to be the prettier of
+the two, though Helen’s features had to a great extent softened as she
+became older. The two girls, who were together on every available
+opportunity, presented a singular contrast, the one with her clear,
+olive skin and almost Italian appearance, and the other of the
+proverbial red and white of our rural districts. It must be stated that
+the payments made to Mr. R. for the maintenance of Helen were known in
+the village for their excessive liberality, and the impression was
+general that she would one day inherit a large sum of money from her
+relative. The parents of Rachel were therefore not averse from their
+daughter’s friendship with the girl, and even encouraged the intimacy,
+though they now bitterly regret having done so. Helen still retained
+her extraordinary fondness for the forest, and on several occasions
+Rachel accompanied her, the two friends setting out early in the
+morning, and remaining in the wood until dusk. Once or twice after
+these excursions Mrs. M. thought her daughter’s manner rather peculiar;
+she seemed languid and dreamy, and as it has been expressed, “different
+from herself,” but these peculiarities seem to have been thought too
+trifling for remark. One evening, however, after Rachel had come home,
+her mother heard a noise which sounded like suppressed weeping in the
+girl’s room, and on going in found her lying, half undressed, upon the
+bed, evidently in the greatest distress. As soon as she saw her mother,
+she exclaimed, “Ah, mother, mother, why did you let me go to the forest
+with Helen?” Mrs. M. was astonished at so strange a question, and
+proceeded to make inquiries. Rachel told her a wild story. She said—
+
+Clarke closed the book with a snap, and turned his chair towards the
+fire. When his friend sat one evening in that very chair, and told his
+story, Clarke had interrupted him at a point a little subsequent to
+this, had cut short his words in a paroxysm of horror. “My God!” he had
+exclaimed, “think, think what you are saying. It is too incredible, too
+monstrous; such things can never be in this quiet world, where men and
+women live and die, and struggle, and conquer, or maybe fail, and fall
+down under sorrow, and grieve and suffer strange fortunes for many a
+year; but not this, Phillips, not such things as this. There must be
+some explanation, some way out of the terror. Why, man, if such a case
+were possible, our earth would be a nightmare.”
+
+But Phillips had told his story to the end, concluding:
+
+“Her flight remains a mystery to this day; she vanished in broad
+sunlight; they saw her walking in a meadow, and a few moments later she
+was not there.”
+
+Clarke tried to conceive the thing again, as he sat by the fire, and
+again his mind shuddered and shrank back, appalled before the sight of
+such awful, unspeakable elements enthroned as it were, and triumphant
+in human flesh. Before him stretched the long dim vista of the green
+causeway in the forest, as his friend had described it; he saw the
+swaying leaves and the quivering shadows on the grass, he saw the
+sunlight and the flowers, and far away, far in the long distance, the
+two figures moved toward him. One was Rachel, but the other?
+
+Clarke had tried his best to disbelieve it all, but at the end of the
+account, as he had written it in his book, he had placed the
+inscription:
+
+Et Diabolus incarnatus est. Et homo factus est.
+
+
+
+
+III
+THE CITY OF RESURRECTIONS
+
+
+“Herbert! Good God! Is it possible?”
+
+“Yes, my name’s Herbert. I think I know your face, too, but I don’t
+remember your name. My memory is very queer.”
+
+“Don’t you recollect Villiers of Wadham?”
+
+“So it is, so it is. I beg your pardon, Villiers, I didn’t think I was
+begging of an old college friend. Good-night.”
+
+“My dear fellow, this haste is unnecessary. My rooms are close by, but
+we won’t go there just yet. Suppose we walk up Shaftesbury Avenue a
+little way? But how in heaven’s name have you come to this pass,
+Herbert?”
+
+“It’s a long story, Villiers, and a strange one too, but you can hear
+it if you like.”
+
+“Come on, then. Take my arm, you don’t seem very strong.”
+
+The ill-assorted pair moved slowly up Rupert Street; the one in dirty,
+evil-looking rags, and the other attired in the regulation uniform of a
+man about town, trim, glossy, and eminently well-to-do. Villiers had
+emerged from his restaurant after an excellent dinner of many courses,
+assisted by an ingratiating little flask of Chianti, and, in that frame
+of mind which was with him almost chronic, had delayed a moment by the
+door, peering round in the dimly-lighted street in search of those
+mysterious incidents and persons with which the streets of London teem
+in every quarter and every hour. Villiers prided himself as a practised
+explorer of such obscure mazes and byways of London life, and in this
+unprofitable pursuit he displayed an assiduity which was worthy of more
+serious employment. Thus he stood by the lamp-post surveying the
+passers-by with undisguised curiosity, and with that gravity known only
+to the systematic diner, had just enunciated in his mind the formula:
+“London has been called the city of encounters; it is more than that,
+it is the city of Resurrections,” when these reflections were suddenly
+interrupted by a piteous whine at his elbow, and a deplorable appeal
+for alms. He looked around in some irritation, and with a sudden shock
+found himself confronted with the embodied proof of his somewhat
+stilted fancies. There, close beside him, his face altered and
+disfigured by poverty and disgrace, his body barely covered by greasy
+ill-fitting rags, stood his old friend Charles Herbert, who had
+matriculated on the same day as himself, with whom he had been merry
+and wise for twelve revolving terms. Different occupations and varying
+interests had interrupted the friendship, and it was six years since
+Villiers had seen Herbert; and now he looked upon this wreck of a man
+with grief and dismay, mingled with a certain inquisitiveness as to
+what dreary chain of circumstances had dragged him down to such a
+doleful pass. Villiers felt together with compassion all the relish of
+the amateur in mysteries, and congratulated himself on his leisurely
+speculations outside the restaurant.
+
+They walked on in silence for some time, and more than one passer-by
+stared in astonishment at the unaccustomed spectacle of a well-dressed
+man with an unmistakable beggar hanging on to his arm, and, observing
+this, Villiers led the way to an obscure street in Soho. Here he
+repeated his question.
+
+“How on earth has it happened, Herbert? I always understood you would
+succeed to an excellent position in Dorsetshire. Did your father
+disinherit you? Surely not?”
+
+“No, Villiers; I came into all the property at my poor father’s death;
+he died a year after I left Oxford. He was a very good father to me,
+and I mourned his death sincerely enough. But you know what young men
+are; a few months later I came up to town and went a good deal into
+society. Of course I had excellent introductions, and I managed to
+enjoy myself very much in a harmless sort of way. I played a little,
+certainly, but never for heavy stakes, and the few bets I made on races
+brought me in money—only a few pounds, you know, but enough to pay for
+cigars and such petty pleasures. It was in my second season that the
+tide turned. Of course you have heard of my marriage?”
+
+“No, I never heard anything about it.”
+
+“Yes, I married, Villiers. I met a girl, a girl of the most wonderful
+and most strange beauty, at the house of some people whom I knew. I
+cannot tell you her age; I never knew it, but, so far as I can guess, I
+should think she must have been about nineteen when I made her
+acquaintance. My friends had come to know her at Florence; she told
+them she was an orphan, the child of an English father and an Italian
+mother, and she charmed them as she charmed me. The first time I saw
+her was at an evening party. I was standing by the door talking to a
+friend, when suddenly above the hum and babble of conversation I heard
+a voice which seemed to thrill to my heart. She was singing an Italian
+song. I was introduced to her that evening, and in three months I
+married Helen. Villiers, that woman, if I can call her woman, corrupted
+my soul. The night of the wedding I found myself sitting in her bedroom
+in the hotel, listening to her talk. She was sitting up in bed, and I
+listened to her as she spoke in her beautiful voice, spoke of things
+which even now I would not dare whisper in the blackest night, though I
+stood in the midst of a wilderness. You, Villiers, you may think you
+know life, and London, and what goes on day and night in this dreadful
+city; for all I can say you may have heard the talk of the vilest, but
+I tell you you can have no conception of what I know, not in your most
+fantastic, hideous dreams can you have imaged forth the faintest shadow
+of what I have heard—and seen. Yes, seen. I have seen the incredible,
+such horrors that even I myself sometimes stop in the middle of the
+street and ask whether it is possible for a man to behold such things
+and live. In a year, Villiers, I was a ruined man, in body and soul—in
+body and soul.”
+
+“But your property, Herbert? You had land in Dorset.”
+
+“I sold it all; the fields and woods, the dear old house—everything.”
+
+“And the money?”
+
+“She took it all from me.”
+
+“And then left you?”
+
+“Yes; she disappeared one night. I don’t know where she went, but I am
+sure if I saw her again it would kill me. The rest of my story is of no
+interest; sordid misery, that is all. You may think, Villiers, that I
+have exaggerated and talked for effect; but I have not told you half. I
+could tell you certain things which would convince you, but you would
+never know a happy day again. You would pass the rest of your life, as
+I pass mine, a haunted man, a man who has seen hell.”
+
+Villiers took the unfortunate man to his rooms, and gave him a meal.
+Herbert could eat little, and scarcely touched the glass of wine set
+before him. He sat moody and silent by the fire, and seemed relieved
+when Villiers sent him away with a small present of money.
+
+“By the way, Herbert,” said Villiers, as they parted at the door, “what
+was your wife’s name? You said Helen, I think? Helen what?”
+
+“The name she passed under when I met her was Helen Vaughan, but what
+her real name was I can’t say. I don’t think she had a name. No, no,
+not in that sense. Only human beings have names, Villiers; I can’t say
+anymore. Good-bye; yes, I will not fail to call if I see any way in
+which you can help me. Good-night.”
+
+The man went out into the bitter night, and Villiers returned to his
+fireside. There was something about Herbert which shocked him
+inexpressibly; not his poor rags nor the marks which poverty had set
+upon his face, but rather an indefinite terror which hung about him
+like a mist. He had acknowledged that he himself was not devoid of
+blame; the woman, he had avowed, had corrupted him body and soul, and
+Villiers felt that this man, once his friend, had been an actor in
+scenes evil beyond the power of words. His story needed no
+confirmation: he himself was the embodied proof of it. Villiers mused
+curiously over the story he had heard, and wondered whether he had
+heard both the first and the last of it. “No,” he thought, “certainly
+not the last, probably only the beginning. A case like this is like a
+nest of Chinese boxes; you open one after the other and find a quainter
+workmanship in every box. Most likely poor Herbert is merely one of the
+outside boxes; there are stranger ones to follow.”
+
+Villiers could not take his mind away from Herbert and his story, which
+seemed to grow wilder as the night wore on. The fire seemed to burn
+low, and the chilly air of the morning crept into the room; Villiers
+got up with a glance over his shoulder, and, shivering slightly, went
+to bed.
+
+A few days later he saw at his club a gentleman of his acquaintance,
+named Austin, who was famous for his intimate knowledge of London life,
+both in its tenebrous and luminous phases. Villiers, still full of his
+encounter in Soho and its consequences, thought Austin might possibly
+be able to shed some light on Herbert’s history, and so after some
+casual talk he suddenly put the question:
+
+“Do you happen to know anything of a man named Herbert—Charles
+Herbert?”
+
+Austin turned round sharply and stared at Villiers with some
+astonishment.
+
+“Charles Herbert? Weren’t you in town three years ago? No; then you
+have not heard of the Paul Street case? It caused a good deal of
+sensation at the time.”
+
+“What was the case?”
+
+“Well, a gentleman, a man of very good position, was found dead, stark
+dead, in the area of a certain house in Paul Street, off Tottenham
+Court Road. Of course the police did not make the discovery; if you
+happen to be sitting up all night and have a light in your window, the
+constable will ring the bell, but if you happen to be lying dead in
+somebody’s area, you will be left alone. In this instance, as in many
+others, the alarm was raised by some kind of vagabond; I don’t mean a
+common tramp, or a public-house loafer, but a gentleman, whose business
+or pleasure, or both, made him a spectator of the London streets at
+five o’clock in the morning. This individual was, as he said, ‘going
+home,’ it did not appear whence or whither, and had occasion to pass
+through Paul Street between four and five a.m. Something or other
+caught his eye at Number 20; he said, absurdly enough, that the house
+had the most unpleasant physiognomy he had ever observed, but, at any
+rate, he glanced down the area and was a good deal astonished to see a
+man lying on the stones, his limbs all huddled together, and his face
+turned up. Our gentleman thought his face looked peculiarly ghastly,
+and so set off at a run in search of the nearest policeman. The
+constable was at first inclined to treat the matter lightly, suspecting
+common drunkenness; however, he came, and after looking at the man’s
+face, changed his tone, quickly enough. The early bird, who had picked
+up this fine worm, was sent off for a doctor, and the policeman rang
+and knocked at the door till a slatternly servant girl came down
+looking more than half asleep. The constable pointed out the contents
+of the area to the maid, who screamed loudly enough to wake up the
+street, but she knew nothing of the man; had never seen him at the
+house, and so forth. Meanwhile, the original discoverer had come back
+with a medical man, and the next thing was to get into the area. The
+gate was open, so the whole quartet stumped down the steps. The doctor
+hardly needed a moment’s examination; he said the poor fellow had been
+dead for several hours, and it was then the case began to get
+interesting. The dead man had not been robbed, and in one of his
+pockets were papers identifying him as—well, as a man of good family
+and means, a favourite in society, and nobody’s enemy, as far as could
+be known. I don’t give his name, Villiers, because it has nothing to do
+with the story, and because it’s no good raking up these affairs about
+the dead when there are no relations living. The next curious point was
+that the medical men couldn’t agree as to how he met his death. There
+were some slight bruises on his shoulders, but they were so slight that
+it looked as if he had been pushed roughly out of the kitchen door, and
+not thrown over the railings from the street or even dragged down the
+steps. But there were positively no other marks of violence about him,
+certainly none that would account for his death; and when they came to
+the autopsy there wasn’t a trace of poison of any kind. Of course the
+police wanted to know all about the people at Number 20, and here
+again, so I have heard from private sources, one or two other very
+curious points came out. It appears that the occupants of the house
+were a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert; he was said to be a landed
+proprietor, though it struck most people that Paul Street was not
+exactly the place to look for country gentry. As for Mrs. Herbert,
+nobody seemed to know who or what she was, and, between ourselves, I
+fancy the divers after her history found themselves in rather strange
+waters. Of course they both denied knowing anything about the deceased,
+and in default of any evidence against them they were discharged. But
+some very odd things came out about them. Though it was between five
+and six in the morning when the dead man was removed, a large crowd had
+collected, and several of the neighbours ran to see what was going on.
+They were pretty free with their comments, by all accounts, and from
+these it appeared that Number 20 was in very bad odour in Paul Street.
+The detectives tried to trace down these rumours to some solid
+foundation of fact, but could not get hold of anything. People shook
+their heads and raised their eyebrows and thought the Herberts rather
+‘queer,’ ‘would rather not be seen going into their house,’ and so on,
+but there was nothing tangible. The authorities were morally certain
+the man met his death in some way or another in the house and was
+thrown out by the kitchen door, but they couldn’t prove it, and the
+absence of any indications of violence or poisoning left them helpless.
+An odd case, wasn’t it? But curiously enough, there’s something more
+that I haven’t told you. I happened to know one of the doctors who was
+consulted as to the cause of death, and some time after the inquest I
+met him, and asked him about it. ‘Do you really mean to tell me,’ I
+said, ‘that you were baffled by the case, that you actually don’t know
+what the man died of?’ ‘Pardon me,’ he replied, ‘I know perfectly well
+what caused death. Blank died of fright, of sheer, awful terror; I
+never saw features so hideously contorted in the entire course of my
+practice, and I have seen the faces of a whole host of dead.’ The
+doctor was usually a cool customer enough, and a certain vehemence in
+his manner struck me, but I couldn’t get anything more out of him. I
+suppose the Treasury didn’t see their way to prosecuting the Herberts
+for frightening a man to death; at any rate, nothing was done, and the
+case dropped out of men’s minds. Do you happen to know anything of
+Herbert?”
+
+“Well,” replied Villiers, “he was an old college friend of mine.”
+
+“You don’t say so? Have you ever seen his wife?”
+
+“No, I haven’t. I have lost sight of Herbert for many years.”
+
+“It’s queer, isn’t it, parting with a man at the college gate or at
+Paddington, seeing nothing of him for years, and then finding him pop
+up his head in such an odd place. But I should like to have seen Mrs.
+Herbert; people said extraordinary things about her.”
+
+“What sort of things?”
+
+“Well, I hardly know how to tell you. Everyone who saw her at the
+police court said she was at once the most beautiful woman and the most
+repulsive they had ever set eyes on. I have spoken to a man who saw
+her, and I assure you he positively shuddered as he tried to describe
+the woman, but he couldn’t tell why. She seems to have been a sort of
+enigma; and I expect if that one dead man could have told tales, he
+would have told some uncommonly queer ones. And there you are again in
+another puzzle; what could a respectable country gentleman like Mr.
+Blank (we’ll call him that if you don’t mind) want in such a very queer
+house as Number 20? It’s altogether a very odd case, isn’t it?”
+
+“It is indeed, Austin; an extraordinary case. I didn’t think, when I
+asked you about my old friend, I should strike on such strange metal.
+Well, I must be off; good-day.”
+
+Villiers went away, thinking of his own conceit of the Chinese boxes;
+here was quaint workmanship indeed.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET
+
+
+A few months after Villiers’ meeting with Herbert, Mr. Clarke was
+sitting, as usual, by his after-dinner hearth, resolutely guarding his
+fancies from wandering in the direction of the bureau. For more than a
+week he had succeeded in keeping away from the “Memoirs,” and he
+cherished hopes of a complete self-reformation; but, in spite of his
+endeavours, he could not hush the wonder and the strange curiosity that
+the last case he had written down had excited within him. He had put
+the case, or rather the outline of it, conjecturally to a scientific
+friend, who shook his head, and thought Clarke getting queer, and on
+this particular evening Clarke was making an effort to rationalize the
+story, when a sudden knock at the door roused him from his meditations.
+
+“Mr. Villiers to see you sir.”
+
+“Dear me, Villiers, it is very kind of you to look me up; I have not
+seen you for many months; I should think nearly a year. Come in, come
+in. And how are you, Villiers? Want any advice about investments?”
+
+“No, thanks, I fancy everything I have in that way is pretty safe. No,
+Clarke, I have really come to consult you about a rather curious matter
+that has been brought under my notice of late. I am afraid you will
+think it all rather absurd when I tell my tale. I sometimes think so
+myself, and that’s just why I made up my mind to come to you, as I know
+you’re a practical man.”
+
+Mr. Villiers was ignorant of the “Memoirs to prove the Existence of the
+Devil.”
+
+“Well, Villiers, I shall be happy to give you my advice, to the best of
+my ability. What is the nature of the case?”
+
+“It’s an extraordinary thing altogether. You know my ways; I always
+keep my eyes open in the streets, and in my time I have chanced upon
+some queer customers, and queer cases too, but this, I think, beats
+all. I was coming out of a restaurant one nasty winter night about
+three months ago; I had had a capital dinner and a good bottle of
+Chianti, and I stood for a moment on the pavement, thinking what a
+mystery there is about London streets and the companies that pass along
+them. A bottle of red wine encourages these fancies, Clarke, and I dare
+say I should have thought a page of small type, but I was cut short by
+a beggar who had come behind me, and was making the usual appeals. Of
+course I looked round, and this beggar turned out to be what was left
+of an old friend of mine, a man named Herbert. I asked him how he had
+come to such a wretched pass, and he told me. We walked up and down one
+of those long and dark Soho streets, and there I listened to his story.
+He said he had married a beautiful girl, some years younger than
+himself, and, as he put it, she had corrupted him body and soul. He
+wouldn’t go into details; he said he dare not, that what he had seen
+and heard haunted him by night and day, and when I looked in his face I
+knew he was speaking the truth. There was something about the man that
+made me shiver. I don’t know why, but it was there. I gave him a little
+money and sent him away, and I assure you that when he was gone I
+gasped for breath. His presence seemed to chill one’s blood.”
+
+“Isn’t this all just a little fanciful, Villiers? I suppose the poor
+fellow had made an imprudent marriage, and, in plain English, gone to
+the bad.”
+
+“Well, listen to this.” Villiers told Clarke the story he had heard
+from Austin.
+
+“You see,” he concluded, “there can be but little doubt that this Mr.
+Blank, whoever he was, died of sheer terror; he saw something so awful,
+so terrible, that it cut short his life. And what he saw, he most
+certainly saw in that house, which, somehow or other, had got a bad
+name in the neighbourhood. I had the curiosity to go and look at the
+place for myself. It’s a saddening kind of street; the houses are old
+enough to be mean and dreary, but not old enough to be quaint. As far
+as I could see most of them are let in lodgings, furnished and
+unfurnished, and almost every door has three bells to it. Here and
+there the ground floors have been made into shops of the commonest
+kind; it’s a dismal street in every way. I found Number 20 was to let,
+and I went to the agent’s and got the key. Of course I should have
+heard nothing of the Herberts in that quarter, but I asked the man,
+fair and square, how long they had left the house and whether there had
+been other tenants in the meanwhile. He looked at me queerly for a
+minute, and told me the Herberts had left immediately after the
+unpleasantness, as he called it, and since then the house had been
+empty.”
+
+Mr. Villiers paused for a moment.
+
+“I have always been rather fond of going over empty houses; there’s a
+sort of fascination about the desolate empty rooms, with the nails
+sticking in the walls, and the dust thick upon the window-sills. But I
+didn’t enjoy going over Number 20, Paul Street. I had hardly put my
+foot inside the passage when I noticed a queer, heavy feeling about the
+air of the house. Of course all empty houses are stuffy, and so forth,
+but this was something quite different; I can’t describe it to you, but
+it seemed to stop the breath. I went into the front room and the back
+room, and the kitchens downstairs; they were all dirty and dusty
+enough, as you would expect, but there was something strange about them
+all. I couldn’t define it to you, I only know I felt queer. It was one
+of the rooms on the first floor, though, that was the worst. It was a
+largish room, and once on a time the paper must have been cheerful
+enough, but when I saw it, paint, paper, and everything were most
+doleful. But the room was full of horror; I felt my teeth grinding as I
+put my hand on the door, and when I went in, I thought I should have
+fallen fainting to the floor. However, I pulled myself together, and
+stood against the end wall, wondering what on earth there could be
+about the room to make my limbs tremble, and my heart beat as if I were
+at the hour of death. In one corner there was a pile of newspapers
+littered on the floor, and I began looking at them; they were papers of
+three or four years ago, some of them half torn, and some crumpled as
+if they had been used for packing. I turned the whole pile over, and
+amongst them I found a curious drawing; I will show it to you
+presently. But I couldn’t stay in the room; I felt it was overpowering
+me. I was thankful to come out, safe and sound, into the open air.
+People stared at me as I walked along the street, and one man said I
+was drunk. I was staggering about from one side of the pavement to the
+other, and it was as much as I could do to take the key back to the
+agent and get home. I was in bed for a week, suffering from what my
+doctor called nervous shock and exhaustion. One of those days I was
+reading the evening paper, and happened to notice a paragraph headed:
+‘Starved to Death.’ It was the usual style of thing; a model
+lodging-house in Marylebone, a door locked for several days, and a dead
+man in his chair when they broke in. ‘The deceased,’ said the
+paragraph, ‘was known as Charles Herbert, and is believed to have been
+once a prosperous country gentleman. His name was familiar to the
+public three years ago in connection with the mysterious death in Paul
+Street, Tottenham Court Road, the deceased being the tenant of the
+house Number 20, in the area of which a gentleman of good position was
+found dead under circumstances not devoid of suspicion.’ A tragic
+ending, wasn’t it? But after all, if what he told me were true, which I
+am sure it was, the man’s life was all a tragedy, and a tragedy of a
+stranger sort than they put on the boards.”
+
+“And that is the story, is it?” said Clarke musingly.
+
+“Yes, that is the story.”
+
+“Well, really, Villiers, I scarcely know what to say about it. There
+are, no doubt, circumstances in the case which seem peculiar, the
+finding of the dead man in the area of Herbert’s house, for instance,
+and the extraordinary opinion of the physician as to the cause of
+death; but, after all, it is conceivable that the facts may be
+explained in a straightforward manner. As to your own sensations, when
+you went to see the house, I would suggest that they were due to a
+vivid imagination; you must have been brooding, in a semi-conscious
+way, over what you had heard. I don’t exactly see what more can be said
+or done in the matter; you evidently think there is a mystery of some
+kind, but Herbert is dead; where then do you propose to look?”
+
+“I propose to look for the woman; the woman whom he married. _She_ is
+the mystery.”
+
+The two men sat silent by the fireside; Clarke secretly congratulating
+himself on having successfully kept up the character of advocate of the
+commonplace, and Villiers wrapped in his gloomy fancies.
+
+“I think I will have a cigarette,” he said at last, and put his hand in
+his pocket to feel for the cigarette-case.
+
+“Ah!” he said, starting slightly, “I forgot I had something to show
+you. You remember my saying that I had found a rather curious sketch
+amongst the pile of old newspapers at the house in Paul Street? Here it
+is.”
+
+Villiers drew out a small thin parcel from his pocket. It was covered
+with brown paper, and secured with string, and the knots were
+troublesome. In spite of himself Clarke felt inquisitive; he bent
+forward on his chair as Villiers painfully undid the string, and
+unfolded the outer covering. Inside was a second wrapping of tissue,
+and Villiers took it off and handed the small piece of paper to Clarke
+without a word.
+
+There was dead silence in the room for five minutes or more; the two
+men sat so still that they could hear the ticking of the tall
+old-fashioned clock that stood outside in the hall, and in the mind of
+one of them the slow monotony of sound woke up a far, far memory. He
+was looking intently at the small pen-and-ink sketch of the woman’s
+head; it had evidently been drawn with great care, and by a true
+artist, for the woman’s soul looked out of the eyes, and the lips were
+parted with a strange smile. Clarke gazed still at the face; it brought
+to his memory one summer evening, long ago; he saw again the long
+lovely valley, the river winding between the hills, the meadows and the
+cornfields, the dull red sun, and the cold white mist rising from the
+water. He heard a voice speaking to him across the waves of many years,
+and saying “Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!” and then he was
+standing in the grim room beside the doctor, listening to the heavy
+ticking of the clock, waiting and watching, watching the figure lying
+on the green chair beneath the lamplight. Mary rose up, and he looked
+into her eyes, and his heart grew cold within him.
+
+“Who is this woman?” he said at last. His voice was dry and hoarse.
+
+“That is the woman who Herbert married.”
+
+Clarke looked again at the sketch; it was not Mary after all. There
+certainly was Mary’s face, but there was something else, something he
+had not seen on Mary’s features when the white-clad girl entered the
+laboratory with the doctor, nor at her terrible awakening, nor when she
+lay grinning on the bed. Whatever it was, the glance that came from
+those eyes, the smile on the full lips, or the expression of the whole
+face, Clarke shuddered before it at his inmost soul, and thought,
+unconsciously, of Dr. Phillip’s words, “the most vivid presentment of
+evil I have ever seen.” He turned the paper over mechanically in his
+hand and glanced at the back.
+
+“Good God! Clarke, what is the matter? You are as white as death.”
+
+Villiers had started wildly from his chair, as Clarke fell back with a
+groan, and let the paper drop from his hands.
+
+“I don’t feel very well, Villiers, I am subject to these attacks. Pour
+me out a little wine; thanks, that will do. I shall feel better in a
+few minutes.”
+
+Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over as Clarke had
+done.
+
+“You saw that?” he said. “That’s how I identified it as being a
+portrait of Herbert’s wife, or I should say his widow. How do you feel
+now?”
+
+“Better, thanks, it was only a passing faintness. I don’t think I quite
+catch your meaning. What did you say enabled you to identify the
+picture?”
+
+“This word—‘Helen’—was written on the back. Didn’t I tell you her name
+was Helen? Yes; Helen Vaughan.”
+
+Clarke groaned; there could be no shadow of doubt.
+
+“Now, don’t you agree with me,” said Villiers, “that in the story I
+have told you to-night, and in the part this woman plays in it, there
+are some very strange points?”
+
+“Yes, Villiers,” Clarke muttered, “it is a strange story indeed; a
+strange story indeed. You must give me time to think it over; I may be
+able to help you or I may not. Must you be going now? Well, good-night,
+Villiers, good-night. Come and see me in the course of a week.”
+
+
+
+
+V
+THE LETTER OF ADVICE
+
+
+“Do you know, Austin,” said Villiers, as the two friends were pacing
+sedately along Piccadilly one pleasant morning in May, “do you know I
+am convinced that what you told me about Paul Street and the Herberts
+is a mere episode in an extraordinary history? I may as well confess to
+you that when I asked you about Herbert a few months ago I had just
+seen him.”
+
+“You had seen him? Where?”
+
+“He begged of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable
+plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history,
+or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this—he had
+been ruined by his wife.”
+
+“In what manner?”
+
+“He would not tell me; he would only say that she had destroyed him,
+body and soul. The man is dead now.”
+
+“And what has become of his wife?”
+
+“Ah, that’s what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner
+or later. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man of
+business, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd in
+the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows
+something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he
+was evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked me
+to come again in the course of a week. A few days later I received this
+extraordinary letter.”
+
+Austin took the envelope, drew out the letter, and read it curiously.
+It ran as follows:—
+
+“MY DEAR VILLIERS,—I have thought over the matter on which you
+consulted me the other night, and my advice to you is this. Throw the
+portrait into the fire, blot out the story from your mind. Never give
+it another thought, Villiers, or you will be sorry. You will think, no
+doubt, that I am in possession of some secret information, and to a
+certain extent that is the case. But I only know a little; I am like a
+traveller who has peered over an abyss, and has drawn back in terror.
+What I know is strange enough and horrible enough, but beyond my
+knowledge there are depths and horrors more frightful still, more
+incredible than any tale told of winter nights about the fire. I have
+resolved, and nothing shall shake that resolve, to explore no whit
+farther, and if you value your happiness you will make the same
+determination.
+    “Come and see me by all means; but we will talk on more cheerful
+    topics than this.”
+
+
+Austin folded the letter methodically, and returned it to Villiers.
+
+“It is certainly an extraordinary letter,” he said, “what does he mean
+by the portrait?”
+
+“Ah! I forgot to tell you I have been to Paul Street and have made a
+discovery.”
+
+Villiers told his story as he had told it to Clarke, and Austin
+listened in silence. He seemed puzzled.
+
+“How very curious that you should experience such an unpleasant
+sensation in that room!” he said at length. “I hardly gather that it
+was a mere matter of the imagination; a feeling of repulsion, in
+short.”
+
+“No, it was more physical than mental. It was as if I were inhaling at
+every breath some deadly fume, which seemed to penetrate to every nerve
+and bone and sinew of my body. I felt racked from head to foot, my eyes
+began to grow dim; it was like the entrance of death.”
+
+“Yes, yes, very strange certainly. You see, your friend confesses that
+there is some very black story connected with this woman. Did you
+notice any particular emotion in him when you were telling your tale?”
+
+“Yes, I did. He became very faint, but he assured me that it was a mere
+passing attack to which he was subject.”
+
+“Did you believe him?”
+
+“I did at the time, but I don’t now. He heard what I had to say with a
+good deal of indifference, till I showed him the portrait. It was then
+that he was seized with the attack of which I spoke. He looked ghastly,
+I assure you.”
+
+“Then he must have seen the woman before. But there might be another
+explanation; it might have been the name, and not the face, which was
+familiar to him. What do you think?”
+
+“I couldn’t say. To the best of my belief it was after turning the
+portrait in his hands that he nearly dropped from the chair. The name,
+you know, was written on the back.”
+
+“Quite so. After all, it is impossible to come to any resolution in a
+case like this. I hate melodrama, and nothing strikes me as more
+commonplace and tedious than the ordinary ghost story of commerce; but
+really, Villiers, it looks as if there were something very queer at the
+bottom of all this.”
+
+The two men had, without noticing it, turned up Ashley Street, leading
+northward from Piccadilly. It was a long street, and rather a gloomy
+one, but here and there a brighter taste had illuminated the dark
+houses with flowers, and gay curtains, and a cheerful paint on the
+doors. Villiers glanced up as Austin stopped speaking, and looked at
+one of these houses; geraniums, red and white, drooped from every sill,
+and daffodil-coloured curtains were draped back from each window.
+
+“It looks cheerful, doesn’t it?” he said.
+
+“Yes, and the inside is still more cheery. One of the pleasantest
+houses of the season, so I have heard. I haven’t been there myself, but
+I’ve met several men who have, and they tell me it’s uncommonly
+jovial.”
+
+“Whose house is it?”
+
+“A Mrs. Beaumont’s.”
+
+“And who is she?”
+
+“I couldn’t tell you. I have heard she comes from South America, but
+after all, who she is is of little consequence. She is a very wealthy
+woman, there’s no doubt of that, and some of the best people have taken
+her up. I hear she has some wonderful claret, really marvellous wine,
+which must have cost a fabulous sum. Lord Argentine was telling me
+about it; he was there last Sunday evening. He assures me he has never
+tasted such a wine, and Argentine, as you know, is an expert. By the
+way, that reminds me, she must be an oddish sort of woman, this Mrs.
+Beaumont. Argentine asked her how old the wine was, and what do you
+think she said? ‘About a thousand years, I believe.’ Lord Argentine
+thought she was chaffing him, you know, but when he laughed she said
+she was speaking quite seriously and offered to show him the jar. Of
+course, he couldn’t say anything more after that; but it seems rather
+antiquated for a beverage, doesn’t it? Why, here we are at my rooms.
+Come in, won’t you?”
+
+“Thanks, I think I will. I haven’t seen the curiosity-shop for a
+while.”
+
+It was a room furnished richly, yet oddly, where every jar and bookcase
+and table, and every rug and jar and ornament seemed to be a thing
+apart, preserving each its own individuality.
+
+“Anything fresh lately?” said Villiers after a while.
+
+“No; I think not; you saw those queer jugs, didn’t you? I thought so. I
+don’t think I have come across anything for the last few weeks.”
+
+Austin glanced around the room from cupboard to cupboard, from shelf to
+shelf, in search of some new oddity. His eyes fell at last on an odd
+chest, pleasantly and quaintly carved, which stood in a dark corner of
+the room.
+
+“Ah,” he said, “I was forgetting, I have got something to show you.”
+Austin unlocked the chest, drew out a thick quarto volume, laid it on
+the table, and resumed the cigar he had put down.
+
+“Did you know Arthur Meyrick the painter, Villiers?”
+
+“A little; I met him two or three times at the house of a friend of
+mine. What has become of him? I haven’t heard his name mentioned for
+some time.”
+
+“He’s dead.”
+
+“You don’t say so! Quite young, wasn’t he?”
+
+“Yes; only thirty when he died.”
+
+“What did he die of?”
+
+“I don’t know. He was an intimate friend of mine, and a thoroughly good
+fellow. He used to come here and talk to me for hours, and he was one
+of the best talkers I have met. He could even talk about painting, and
+that’s more than can be said of most painters. About eighteen months
+ago he was feeling rather overworked, and partly at my suggestion he
+went off on a sort of roving expedition, with no very definite end or
+aim about it. I believe New York was to be his first port, but I never
+heard from him. Three months ago I got this book, with a very civil
+letter from an English doctor practising at Buenos Ayres, stating that
+he had attended the late Mr. Meyrick during his illness, and that the
+deceased had expressed an earnest wish that the enclosed packet should
+be sent to me after his death. That was all.”
+
+“And haven’t you written for further particulars?”
+
+“I have been thinking of doing so. You would advise me to write to the
+doctor?”
+
+“Certainly. And what about the book?”
+
+“It was sealed up when I got it. I don’t think the doctor had seen it.”
+
+“It is something very rare? Meyrick was a collector, perhaps?”
+
+“No, I think not, hardly a collector. Now, what do you think of these
+Ainu jugs?”
+
+“They are peculiar, but I like them. But aren’t you going to show me
+poor Meyrick’s legacy?”
+
+“Yes, yes, to be sure. The fact is, it’s rather a peculiar sort of
+thing, and I haven’t shown it to any one. I wouldn’t say anything about
+it if I were you. There it is.”
+
+Villiers took the book, and opened it at haphazard.
+
+“It isn’t a printed volume, then?” he said.
+
+“No. It is a collection of drawings in black and white by my poor
+friend Meyrick.”
+
+Villiers turned to the first page, it was blank; the second bore a
+brief inscription, which he read:
+
+Silet per diem universus, nec sine horrore secretus est; lucet
+nocturnis ignibus, chorus Ægipanum undique personatur: audiuntur et
+cantus tibiarum, et tinnitus cymbalorum per oram maritimam.
+
+
+On the third page was a design which made Villiers start and look up at
+Austin; he was gazing abstractedly out of the window. Villiers turned
+page after page, absorbed, in spite of himself, in the frightful
+Walpurgis Night of evil, strange monstrous evil, that the dead artist
+had set forth in hard black and white. The figures of Fauns and Satyrs
+and Ægipans danced before his eyes, the darkness of the thicket, the
+dance on the mountain-top, the scenes by lonely shores, in green
+vineyards, by rocks and desert places, passed before him: a world
+before which the human soul seemed to shrink back and shudder. Villiers
+whirled over the remaining pages; he had seen enough, but the picture
+on the last leaf caught his eye, as he almost closed the book.
+
+“Austin!”
+
+“Well, what is it?”
+
+“Do you know who that is?”
+
+It was a woman’s face, alone on the white page.
+
+“Know who it is? No, of course not.”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+“It is Mrs. Herbert.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“I am perfectly sure of it. Poor Meyrick! He is one more chapter in her
+history.”
+
+“But what do you think of the designs?”
+
+“They are frightful. Lock the book up again, Austin. If I were you I
+would burn it; it must be a terrible companion even though it be in a
+chest.”
+
+“Yes, they are singular drawings. But I wonder what connection there
+could be between Meyrick and Mrs. Herbert, or what link between her and
+these designs?”
+
+“Ah, who can say? It is possible that the matter may end here, and we
+shall never know, but in my own opinion this Helen Vaughan, or Mrs.
+Herbert, is only the beginning. She will come back to London, Austin;
+depend on it, she will come back, and we shall hear more about her
+then. I doubt it will be very pleasant news.”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+THE SUICIDES
+
+
+Lord Argentine was a great favourite in London Society. At twenty he
+had been a poor man, decked with the surname of an illustrious family,
+but forced to earn a livelihood as best he could, and the most
+speculative of money-lenders would not have entrusted him with fifty
+pounds on the chance of his ever changing his name for a title, and his
+poverty for a great fortune. His father had been near enough to the
+fountain of good things to secure one of the family livings, but the
+son, even if he had taken orders, would scarcely have obtained so much
+as this, and moreover felt no vocation for the ecclesiastical estate.
+Thus he fronted the world with no better armour than the bachelor’s
+gown and the wits of a younger son’s grandson, with which equipment he
+contrived in some way to make a very tolerable fight of it. At
+twenty-five Mr. Charles Aubernon saw himself still a man of struggles
+and of warfare with the world, but out of the seven who stood before
+him and the high places of his family three only remained. These three,
+however, were “good lives,” but yet not proof against the Zulu assegais
+and typhoid fever, and so one morning Aubernon woke up and found
+himself Lord Argentine, a man of thirty who had faced the difficulties
+of existence, and had conquered. The situation amused him immensely,
+and he resolved that riches should be as pleasant to him as poverty had
+always been. Argentine, after some little consideration, came to the
+conclusion that dining, regarded as a fine art, was perhaps the most
+amusing pursuit open to fallen humanity, and thus his dinners became
+famous in London, and an invitation to his table a thing covetously
+desired. After ten years of lordship and dinners Argentine still
+declined to be jaded, still persisted in enjoying life, and by a kind
+of infection had become recognized as the cause of joy in others, in
+short, as the best of company. His sudden and tragical death therefore
+caused a wide and deep sensation. People could scarcely believe it,
+even though the newspaper was before their eyes, and the cry of
+“Mysterious Death of a Nobleman” came ringing up from the street. But
+there stood the brief paragraph: “Lord Argentine was found dead this
+morning by his valet under distressing circumstances. It is stated that
+there can be no doubt that his lordship committed suicide, though no
+motive can be assigned for the act. The deceased nobleman was widely
+known in society, and much liked for his genial manner and sumptuous
+hospitality. He is succeeded by,” etc., etc.
+
+By slow degrees the details came to light, but the case still remained
+a mystery. The chief witness at the inquest was the deceased’s valet,
+who said that the night before his death Lord Argentine had dined with
+a lady of good position, whose name was suppressed in the newspaper
+reports. At about eleven o’clock Lord Argentine had returned, and
+informed his man that he should not require his services till the next
+morning. A little later the valet had occasion to cross the hall and
+was somewhat astonished to see his master quietly letting himself out
+at the front door. He had taken off his evening clothes, and was
+dressed in a Norfolk coat and knickerbockers, and wore a low brown hat.
+The valet had no reason to suppose that Lord Argentine had seen him,
+and though his master rarely kept late hours, thought little of the
+occurrence till the next morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door
+at a quarter to nine as usual. He received no answer, and, after
+knocking two or three times, entered the room, and saw Lord Argentine’s
+body leaning forward at an angle from the bottom of the bed. He found
+that his master had tied a cord securely to one of the short bed-posts,
+and, after making a running noose and slipping it round his neck, the
+unfortunate man must have resolutely fallen forward, to die by slow
+strangulation. He was dressed in the light suit in which the valet had
+seen him go out, and the doctor who was summoned pronounced that life
+had been extinct for more than four hours. All papers, letters, and so
+forth seemed in perfect order, and nothing was discovered which pointed
+in the most remote way to any scandal either great or small. Here the
+evidence ended; nothing more could be discovered. Several persons had
+been present at the dinner-party at which Lord Argentine had assisted,
+and to all these he seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet,
+indeed, said he thought his master appeared a little excited when he
+came home, but confessed that the alteration in his manner was very
+slight, hardly noticeable, indeed. It seemed hopeless to seek for any
+clue, and the suggestion that Lord Argentine had been suddenly attacked
+by acute suicidal mania was generally accepted.
+
+It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks, three more
+gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two others men of good
+position and ample means, perished miserably in the almost precisely
+the same manner. Lord Swanleigh was found one morning in his
+dressing-room, hanging from a peg affixed to the wall, and Mr.
+Collier-Stuart and Mr. Herries had chosen to die as Lord Argentine.
+There was no explanation in either case; a few bald facts; a living man
+in the evening, and a body with a black swollen face in the morning.
+The police had been forced to confess themselves powerless to arrest or
+to explain the sordid murders of Whitechapel; but before the horrible
+suicides of Piccadilly and Mayfair they were dumbfoundered, for not
+even the mere ferocity which did duty as an explanation of the crimes
+of the East End, could be of service in the West. Each of these men who
+had resolved to die a tortured shameful death was rich, prosperous, and
+to all appearances in love with the world, and not the acutest research
+should ferret out any shadow of a lurking motive in either case. There
+was a horror in the air, and men looked at one another’s faces when
+they met, each wondering whether the other was to be the victim of the
+fifth nameless tragedy. Journalists sought in vain for their scrapbooks
+for materials whereof to concoct reminiscent articles; and the morning
+paper was unfolded in many a house with a feeling of awe; no man knew
+when or where the next blow would light.
+
+A short while after the last of these terrible events, Austin came to
+see Mr. Villiers. He was curious to know whether Villiers had succeeded
+in discovering any fresh traces of Mrs. Herbert, either through Clarke
+or by other sources, and he asked the question soon after he had sat
+down.
+
+“No,” said Villiers, “I wrote to Clarke, but he remains obdurate, and I
+have tried other channels, but without any result. I can’t find out
+what became of Helen Vaughan after she left Paul Street, but I think
+she must have gone abroad. But to tell the truth, Austin, I haven’t
+paid much attention to the matter for the last few weeks; I knew poor
+Herries intimately, and his terrible death has been a great shock to
+me, a great shock.”
+
+“I can well believe it,” answered Austin gravely, “you know Argentine
+was a friend of mine. If I remember rightly, we were speaking of him
+that day you came to my rooms.”
+
+“Yes; it was in connection with that house in Ashley Street, Mrs.
+Beaumont’s house. You said something about Argentine’s dining there.”
+
+“Quite so. Of course you know it was there Argentine dined the night
+before—before his death.”
+
+“No, I had not heard that.”
+
+“Oh, yes; the name was kept out of the papers to spare Mrs. Beaumont.
+Argentine was a great favourite of hers, and it is said she was in a
+terrible state for sometime after.”
+
+A curious look came over Villiers’ face; he seemed undecided whether to
+speak or not. Austin began again.
+
+“I never experienced such a feeling of horror as when I read the
+account of Argentine’s death. I didn’t understand it at the time, and I
+don’t now. I knew him well, and it completely passes my understanding
+for what possible cause he—or any of the others for the matter of
+that—could have resolved in cold blood to die in such an awful manner.
+You know how men babble away each other’s characters in London, you may
+be sure any buried scandal or hidden skeleton would have been brought
+to light in such a case as this; but nothing of the sort has taken
+place. As for the theory of mania, that is very well, of course, for
+the coroner’s jury, but everybody knows that it’s all nonsense.
+Suicidal mania is not small-pox.”
+
+Austin relapsed into gloomy silence. Villiers sat silent, also,
+watching his friend. The expression of indecision still fleeted across
+his face; he seemed as if weighing his thoughts in the balance, and the
+considerations he was resolving left him still silent. Austin tried to
+shake off the remembrance of tragedies as hopeless and perplexed as the
+labyrinth of Daedalus, and began to talk in an indifferent voice of the
+more pleasant incidents and adventures of the season.
+
+“That Mrs. Beaumont,” he said, “of whom we were speaking, is a great
+success; she has taken London almost by storm. I met her the other
+night at Fulham’s; she is really a remarkable woman.”
+
+“You have met Mrs. Beaumont?”
+
+“Yes; she had quite a court around her. She would be called very
+handsome, I suppose, and yet there is something about her face which I
+didn’t like. The features are exquisite, but the expression is strange.
+And all the time I was looking at her, and afterwards, when I was going
+home, I had a curious feeling that very expression was in some way or
+another familiar to me.”
+
+“You must have seen her in the Row.”
+
+“No, I am sure I never set eyes on the woman before; it is that which
+makes it puzzling. And to the best of my belief I have never seen
+anyone like her; what I felt was a kind of dim far-off memory, vague
+but persistent. The only sensation I can compare it to, is that odd
+feeling one sometimes has in a dream, when fantastic cities and
+wondrous lands and phantom personages appear familiar and accustomed.”
+
+Villiers nodded and glanced aimlessly round the room, possibly in
+search of something on which to turn the conversation. His eyes fell on
+an old chest somewhat like that in which the artist’s strange legacy
+lay hid beneath a Gothic scutcheon.
+
+“Have you written to the doctor about poor Meyrick?” he asked.
+
+“Yes; I wrote asking for full particulars as to his illness and death.
+I don’t expect to have an answer for another three weeks or a month. I
+thought I might as well inquire whether Meyrick knew an Englishwoman
+named Herbert, and if so, whether the doctor could give me any
+information about her. But it’s very possible that Meyrick fell in with
+her at New York, or Mexico, or San Francisco; I have no idea as to the
+extent or direction of his travels.”
+
+“Yes, and it’s very possible that the woman may have more than one
+name.”
+
+“Exactly. I wish I had thought of asking you to lend me the portrait of
+her which you possess. I might have enclosed it in my letter to Dr.
+Matthews.”
+
+“So you might; that never occurred to me. We might send it now. Hark!
+what are those boys calling?”
+
+While the two men had been talking together a confused noise of
+shouting had been gradually growing louder. The noise rose from the
+eastward and swelled down Piccadilly, drawing nearer and nearer, a very
+torrent of sound; surging up streets usually quiet, and making every
+window a frame for a face, curious or excited. The cries and voices
+came echoing up the silent street where Villiers lived, growing more
+distinct as they advanced, and, as Villiers spoke, an answer rang up
+from the pavement:
+
+“The West End Horrors; Another Awful Suicide; Full Details!”
+
+Austin rushed down the stairs and bought a paper and read out the
+paragraph to Villiers as the uproar in the street rose and fell. The
+window was open and the air seemed full of noise and terror.
+
+“Another gentleman has fallen a victim to the terrible epidemic of
+suicide which for the last month has prevailed in the West End. Mr.
+Sidney Crashaw, of Stoke House, Fulham, and King’s Pomeroy, Devon, was
+found, after a prolonged search, hanging dead from the branch of a tree
+in his garden at one o’clock today. The deceased gentleman dined last
+night at the Carlton Club and seemed in his usual health and spirits.
+He left the club at about ten o’clock, and was seen walking leisurely
+up St. James’s Street a little later. Subsequent to this his movements
+cannot be traced. On the discovery of the body medical aid was at once
+summoned, but life had evidently been long extinct. So far as is known,
+Mr. Crashaw had no trouble or anxiety of any kind. This painful
+suicide, it will be remembered, is the fifth of the kind in the last
+month. The authorities at Scotland Yard are unable to suggest any
+explanation of these terrible occurrences.”
+
+Austin put down the paper in mute horror.
+
+“I shall leave London to-morrow,” he said, “it is a city of nightmares.
+How awful this is, Villiers!”
+
+Mr. Villiers was sitting by the window quietly looking out into the
+street. He had listened to the newspaper report attentively, and the
+hint of indecision was no longer on his face.
+
+“Wait a moment, Austin,” he replied, “I have made up my mind to mention
+a little matter that occurred last night. It stated, I think, that
+Crashaw was last seen alive in St. James’s Street shortly after ten?”
+
+“Yes, I think so. I will look again. Yes, you are quite right.”
+
+“Quite so. Well, I am in a position to contradict that statement at all
+events. Crashaw was seen after that; considerably later indeed.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Because I happened to see Crashaw myself at about two o’clock this
+morning.”
+
+“You saw Crashaw? You, Villiers?”
+
+“Yes, I saw him quite distinctly; indeed, there were but a few feet
+between us.”
+
+“Where, in Heaven’s name, did you see him?”
+
+“Not far from here. I saw him in Ashley Street. He was just leaving a
+house.”
+
+“Did you notice what house it was?”
+
+“Yes. It was Mrs. Beaumont’s.”
+
+“Villiers! Think what you are saying; there must be some mistake. How
+could Crashaw be in Mrs. Beaumont’s house at two o’clock in the
+morning? Surely, surely, you must have been dreaming, Villiers; you
+were always rather fanciful.”
+
+“No; I was wide awake enough. Even if I had been dreaming as you say,
+what I saw would have roused me effectually.”
+
+“What you saw? What did you see? Was there anything strange about
+Crashaw? But I can’t believe it; it is impossible.”
+
+“Well, if you like I will tell you what I saw, or if you please, what I
+think I saw, and you can judge for yourself.”
+
+“Very good, Villiers.”
+
+The noise and clamour of the street had died away, though now and then
+the sound of shouting still came from the distance, and the dull,
+leaden silence seemed like the quiet after an earthquake or a storm.
+Villiers turned from the window and began speaking.
+
+“I was at a house near Regent’s Park last night, and when I came away
+the fancy took me to walk home instead of taking a hansom. It was a
+clear pleasant night enough, and after a few minutes I had the streets
+pretty much to myself. It’s a curious thing, Austin, to be alone in
+London at night, the gas-lamps stretching away in perspective, and the
+dead silence, and then perhaps the rush and clatter of a hansom on the
+stones, and the fire starting up under the horse’s hoofs. I walked
+along pretty briskly, for I was feeling a little tired of being out in
+the night, and as the clocks were striking two I turned down Ashley
+Street, which, you know, is on my way. It was quieter than ever there,
+and the lamps were fewer; altogether, it looked as dark and gloomy as a
+forest in winter. I had done about half the length of the street when I
+heard a door closed very softly, and naturally I looked up to see who
+was abroad like myself at such an hour. As it happens, there is a
+street lamp close to the house in question, and I saw a man standing on
+the step. He had just shut the door and his face was towards me, and I
+recognized Crashaw directly. I never knew him to speak to, but I had
+often seen him, and I am positive that I was not mistaken in my man. I
+looked into his face for a moment, and then—I will confess the truth—I
+set off at a good run, and kept it up till I was within my own door.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Why? Because it made my blood run cold to see that man’s face. I could
+never have supposed that such an infernal medley of passions could have
+glared out of any human eyes; I almost fainted as I looked. I knew I
+had looked into the eyes of a lost soul, Austin, the man’s outward form
+remained, but all hell was within it. Furious lust, and hate that was
+like fire, and the loss of all hope and horror that seemed to shriek
+aloud to the night, though his teeth were shut; and the utter blackness
+of despair. I am sure that he did not see me; he saw nothing that you
+or I can see, but what he saw I hope we never shall. I do not know when
+he died; I suppose in an hour, or perhaps two, but when I passed down
+Ashley Street and heard the closing door, that man no longer belonged
+to this world; it was a devil’s face I looked upon.”
+
+There was an interval of silence in the room when Villiers ceased
+speaking. The light was failing, and all the tumult of an hour ago was
+quite hushed. Austin had bent his head at the close of the story, and
+his hand covered his eyes.
+
+“What can it mean?” he said at length.
+
+“Who knows, Austin, who knows? It’s a black business, but I think we
+had better keep it to ourselves, for the present at any rate. I will
+see if I cannot learn anything about that house through private
+channels of information, and if I do light upon anything I will let you
+know.”
+
+
+
+
+VII
+THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO
+
+
+Three weeks later Austin received a note from Villiers, asking him to
+call either that afternoon or the next. He chose the nearer date, and
+found Villiers sitting as usual by the window, apparently lost in
+meditation on the drowsy traffic of the street. There was a bamboo
+table by his side, a fantastic thing, enriched with gilding and queer
+painted scenes, and on it lay a little pile of papers arranged and
+docketed as neatly as anything in Mr. Clarke’s office.
+
+“Well, Villiers, have you made any discoveries in the last three
+weeks?”
+
+“I think so; I have here one or two memoranda which struck me as
+singular, and there is a statement to which I shall call your
+attention.”
+
+“And these documents relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashaw
+whom you saw that night standing on the doorstep of the house in Ashley
+Street?”
+
+“As to that matter my belief remains unchanged, but neither my
+inquiries nor their results have any special relation to Crashaw. But
+my investigations have had a strange issue. I have found out who Mrs.
+Beaumont is!”
+
+“Who is she? In what way do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that you and I know her better under another name.”
+
+“What name is that?”
+
+“Herbert.”
+
+“Herbert!” Austin repeated the word, dazed with astonishment.
+
+“Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street, Helen Vaughan of earlier adventures
+unknown to me. You had reason to recognize the expression of her face;
+when you go home look at the face in Meyrick’s book of horrors, and you
+will know the sources of your recollection.”
+
+“And you have proof of this?”
+
+“Yes, the best of proof; I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or shall we say
+Mrs. Herbert?”
+
+“Where did you see her?”
+
+“Hardly in a place where you would expect to see a lady who lives in
+Ashley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in one of the
+meanest and most disreputable streets in Soho. In fact, I had made an
+appointment, though not with her, and she was precise to both time and
+place.”
+
+“All this seems very wonderful, but I cannot call it incredible. You
+must remember, Villiers, that I have seen this woman, in the ordinary
+adventure of London society, talking and laughing, and sipping her
+coffee in a commonplace drawing-room with commonplace people. But you
+know what you are saying.”
+
+“I do; I have not allowed myself to be led by surmises or fancies. It
+was with no thought of finding Helen Vaughan that I searched for Mrs.
+Beaumont in the dark waters of the life of London, but such has been
+the issue.”
+
+“You must have been in strange places, Villiers.”
+
+“Yes, I have been in very strange places. It would have been useless,
+you know, to go to Ashley Street, and ask Mrs. Beaumont to give me a
+short sketch of her previous history. No; assuming, as I had to assume,
+that her record was not of the cleanest, it would be pretty certain
+that at some previous time she must have moved in circles not quite so
+refined as her present ones. If you see mud at the top of a stream, you
+may be sure that it was once at the bottom. I went to the bottom. I
+have always been fond of diving into Queer Street for my amusement, and
+I found my knowledge of that locality and its inhabitants very useful.
+It is, perhaps, needless to say that my friends had never heard the
+name of Beaumont, and as I had never seen the lady, and was quite
+unable to describe her, I had to set to work in an indirect way. The
+people there know me; I have been able to do some of them a service now
+and again, so they made no difficulty about giving their information;
+they were aware I had no communication direct or indirect with Scotland
+Yard. I had to cast out a good many lines, though, before I got what I
+wanted, and when I landed the fish I did not for a moment suppose it
+was my fish. But I listened to what I was told out of a constitutional
+liking for useless information, and I found myself in possession of a
+very curious story, though, as I imagined, not the story I was looking
+for. It was to this effect. Some five or six years ago, a woman named
+Raymond suddenly made her appearance in the neighbourhood to which I am
+referring. She was described to me as being quite young, probably not
+more than seventeen or eighteen, very handsome, and looking as if she
+came from the country. I should be wrong in saying that she found her
+level in going to this particular quarter, or associating with these
+people, for from what I was told, I should think the worst den in
+London far too good for her. The person from whom I got my information,
+as you may suppose, no great Puritan, shuddered and grew sick in
+telling me of the nameless infamies which were laid to her charge.
+After living there for a year, or perhaps a little more, she
+disappeared as suddenly as she came, and they saw nothing of her till
+about the time of the Paul Street case. At first she came to her old
+haunts only occasionally, then more frequently, and finally took up her
+abode there as before, and remained for six or eight months. It’s of no
+use my going into details as to the life that woman led; if you want
+particulars you can look at Meyrick’s legacy. Those designs were not
+drawn from his imagination. She again disappeared, and the people of
+the place saw nothing of her till a few months ago. My informant told
+me that she had taken some rooms in a house which he pointed out, and
+these rooms she was in the habit of visiting two or three times a week
+and always at ten in the morning. I was led to expect that one of these
+visits would be paid on a certain day about a week ago, and I
+accordingly managed to be on the look-out in company with my cicerone
+at a quarter to ten, and the hour and the lady came with equal
+punctuality. My friend and I were standing under an archway, a little
+way back from the street, but she saw us, and gave me a glance that I
+shall be long in forgetting. That look was quite enough for me; I knew
+Miss Raymond to be Mrs. Herbert; as for Mrs. Beaumont she had quite
+gone out of my head. She went into the house, and I watched it till
+four o’clock, when she came out, and then I followed her. It was a long
+chase, and I had to be very careful to keep a long way in the
+background, and yet not lose sight of the woman. She took me down to
+the Strand, and then to Westminster, and then up St. James’s Street,
+and along Piccadilly. I felt queerish when I saw her turn up Ashley
+Street; the thought that Mrs. Herbert was Mrs. Beaumont came into my
+mind, but it seemed too impossible to be true. I waited at the corner,
+keeping my eye on her all the time, and I took particular care to note
+the house at which she stopped. It was the house with the gay curtains,
+the home of flowers, the house out of which Crashaw came the night he
+hanged himself in his garden. I was just going away with my discovery,
+when I saw an empty carriage come round and draw up in front of the
+house, and I came to the conclusion that Mrs. Herbert was going out for
+a drive, and I was right. There, as it happened, I met a man I know,
+and we stood talking together a little distance from the carriage-way,
+to which I had my back. We had not been there for ten minutes when my
+friend took off his hat, and I glanced round and saw the lady I had
+been following all day. ‘Who is that?’ I said, and his answer was ‘Mrs.
+Beaumont; lives in Ashley Street.’ Of course there could be no doubt
+after that. I don’t know whether she saw me, but I don’t think she did.
+I went home at once, and, on consideration, I thought that I had a
+sufficiently good case with which to go to Clarke.”
+
+“Why to Clarke?”
+
+“Because I am sure that Clarke is in possession of facts about this
+woman, facts of which I know nothing.”
+
+“Well, what then?”
+
+Mr. Villiers leaned back in his chair and looked reflectively at Austin
+for a moment before he answered:
+
+“My idea was that Clarke and I should call on Mrs. Beaumont.”
+
+“You would never go into such a house as that? No, no, Villiers, you
+cannot do it. Besides, consider; what result...”
+
+“I will tell you soon. But I was going to say that my information does
+not end here; it has been completed in an extraordinary manner.
+
+“Look at this neat little packet of manuscript; it is paginated, you
+see, and I have indulged in the civil coquetry of a ribbon of red tape.
+It has almost a legal air, hasn’t it? Run your eye over it, Austin. It
+is an account of the entertainment Mrs. Beaumont provided for her
+choicer guests. The man who wrote this escaped with his life, but I do
+not think he will live many years. The doctors tell him he must have
+sustained some severe shock to the nerves.”
+
+Austin took the manuscript, but never read it. Opening the neat pages
+at haphazard his eye was caught by a word and a phrase that followed
+it; and, sick at heart, with white lips and a cold sweat pouring like
+water from his temples, he flung the paper down.
+
+“Take it away, Villiers, never speak of this again. Are you made of
+stone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of
+the man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform,
+bound, the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of
+the bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I should
+never sleep again.”
+
+“Very good. I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but
+after all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day, and in
+dim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olive
+gardens. We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the Great
+God Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols of
+something, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath
+which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most
+secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which
+the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies
+blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot
+be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a
+symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a
+foolish tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of the
+terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under
+human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh,
+Austin, how can it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn
+to blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath
+such a burden?”
+
+Villiers was pacing up and down the room, and the beads of sweat stood
+out on his forehead. Austin sat silent for a while, but Villiers saw
+him make a sign upon his breast.
+
+“I say again, Villiers, you will surely never enter such a house as
+that? You would never pass out alive.”
+
+“Yes, Austin, I shall go out alive—I, and Clarke with me.”
+
+“What do you mean? You cannot, you would not dare...”
+
+“Wait a moment. The air was very pleasant and fresh this morning; there
+was a breeze blowing, even through this dull street, and I thought I
+would take a walk. Piccadilly stretched before me a clear, bright
+vista, and the sun flashed on the carriages and on the quivering leaves
+in the park. It was a joyous morning, and men and women looked at the
+sky and smiled as they went about their work or their pleasure, and the
+wind blew as blithely as upon the meadows and the scented gorse. But
+somehow or other I got out of the bustle and the gaiety, and found
+myself walking slowly along a quiet, dull street, where there seemed to
+be no sunshine and no air, and where the few foot-passengers loitered
+as they walked, and hung indecisively about corners and archways. I
+walked along, hardly knowing where I was going or what I did there, but
+feeling impelled, as one sometimes is, to explore still further, with a
+vague idea of reaching some unknown goal. Thus I forged up the street,
+noting the small traffic of the milk-shop, and wondering at the
+incongruous medley of penny pipes, black tobacco, sweets, newspapers,
+and comic songs which here and there jostled one another in the short
+compass of a single window. I think it was a cold shudder that suddenly
+passed through me that first told me that I had found what I wanted. I
+looked up from the pavement and stopped before a dusty shop, above
+which the lettering had faded, where the red bricks of two hundred
+years ago had grimed to black; where the windows had gathered to
+themselves the dust of winters innumerable. I saw what I required; but
+I think it was five minutes before I had steadied myself and could walk
+in and ask for it in a cool voice and with a calm face. I think there
+must even then have been a tremor in my words, for the old man who came
+out of the back parlour, and fumbled slowly amongst his goods, looked
+oddly at me as he tied the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stood
+leaning by the counter, with a strange reluctance to take up my goods
+and go. I asked about the business, and learnt that trade was bad and
+the profits cut down sadly; but then the street was not what it was
+before traffic had been diverted, but that was done forty years ago,
+‘just before my father died,’ he said. I got away at last, and walked
+along sharply; it was a dismal street indeed, and I was glad to return
+to the bustle and the noise. Would you like to see my purchase?”
+
+Austin said nothing, but nodded his head slightly; he still looked
+white and sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in the bamboo table, and
+showed Austin a long coil of cord, hard and new; and at one end was a
+running noose.
+
+“It is the best hempen cord,” said Villiers, “just as it used to be
+made for the old trade, the man told me. Not an inch of jute from end
+to end.”
+
+Austin set his teeth hard, and stared at Villiers, growing whiter as he
+looked.
+
+“You would not do it,” he murmured at last. “You would not have blood
+on your hands. My God!” he exclaimed, with sudden vehemence, “you
+cannot mean this, Villiers, that you will make yourself a hangman?”
+
+“No. I shall offer a choice, and leave Helen Vaughan alone with this
+cord in a locked room for fifteen minutes. If when we go in it is not
+done, I shall call the nearest policeman. That is all.”
+
+“I must go now. I cannot stay here any longer; I cannot bear this.
+Good-night.”
+
+“Good-night, Austin.”
+
+The door shut, but in a moment it was open again, and Austin stood,
+white and ghastly, in the entrance.
+
+“I was forgetting,” he said, “that I too have something to tell. I have
+received a letter from Dr. Harding of Buenos Ayres. He says that he
+attended Meyrick for three weeks before his death.”
+
+“And does he say what carried him off in the prime of life? It was not
+fever?”
+
+“No, it was not fever. According to the doctor, it was an utter
+collapse of the whole system, probably caused by some severe shock. But
+he states that the patient would tell him nothing, and that he was
+consequently at some disadvantage in treating the case.”
+
+“Is there anything more?”
+
+“Yes. Dr. Harding ends his letter by saying: ‘I think this is all the
+information I can give you about your poor friend. He had not been long
+in Buenos Ayres, and knew scarcely any one, with the exception of a
+person who did not bear the best of characters, and has since left—a
+Mrs. Vaughan.’”
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+THE FRAGMENTS
+
+
+[Amongst the papers of the well-known physician, Dr. Robert Matheson,
+of Ashley Street, Piccadilly, who died suddenly, of apoplectic seizure,
+at the beginning of 1892, a leaf of manuscript paper was found, covered
+with pencil jottings. These notes were in Latin, much abbreviated, and
+had evidently been made in great haste. The MS. was only deciphered
+with difficulty, and some words have up to the present time evaded all
+the efforts of the expert employed. The date, “XXV Jul. 1888,” is
+written on the right-hand corner of the MS. The following is a
+translation of Dr. Matheson’s manuscript.]
+
+
+“Whether science would benefit by these brief notes if they could be
+published, I do not know, but rather doubt. But certainly I shall never
+take the responsibility of publishing or divulging one word of what is
+here written, not only on account of my oath given freely to those two
+persons who were present, but also because the details are too
+abominable. It is probably that, upon mature consideration, and after
+weighting the good and evil, I shall one day destroy this paper, or at
+least leave it under seal to my friend D., trusting in his discretion,
+to use it or to burn it, as he may think fit.
+
+“As was befitting, I did all that my knowledge suggested to make sure
+that I was suffering under no delusion. At first astounded, I could
+hardly think, but in a minute’s time I was sure that my pulse was
+steady and regular, and that I was in my real and true senses. I then
+fixed my eyes quietly on what was before me.
+
+“Though horror and revolting nausea rose up within me, and an odour of
+corruption choked my breath, I remained firm. I was then privileged or
+accursed, I dare not say which, to see that which was on the bed, lying
+there black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the
+flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the
+human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as
+adamant, began to melt and dissolve.
+
+“I know that the body may be separated into its elements by external
+agencies, but I should have refused to believe what I saw. For here
+there was some internal force, of which I knew nothing, that caused
+dissolution and change.
+
+“Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated before
+my eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from
+itself, and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the
+beasts whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to
+the depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life,
+which makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed.
+
+“The light within the room had turned to blackness, not the darkness of
+night, in which objects are seen dimly, for I could see clearly and
+without difficulty. But it was the negation of light; objects were
+presented to my eyes, if I may say so, without any medium, in such a
+manner that if there had been a prism in the room I should have seen no
+colours represented in it.
+
+“I watched, and at last I saw nothing but a substance as jelly. Then
+the ladder was ascended again... [_here the_ MS. _is illegible_] ...for
+one instance I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will
+not farther describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in
+ancient sculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava,
+too foul to be spoken of... as a horrible and unspeakable shape,
+neither man nor beast, was changed into human form, there came finally
+death.
+
+“I who saw all this, not without great horror and loathing of soul,
+here write my name, declaring all that I have set on this paper to be
+true.
+
+“ROBERT MATHESON, Med. Dr.”
+
+
+...Such, Raymond, is the story of what I know and what I have seen. The
+burden of it was too heavy for me to bear alone, and yet I could tell
+it to none but you. Villiers, who was with me at the last, knows
+nothing of that awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die,
+lay upon the smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun
+and half in shadow, and holding the girl Rachel’s hand, called and
+summoned those companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we
+tread upon, the horror which we can but hint at, which we can only name
+under a figure. I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that
+resemblance, which struck me as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw
+the portrait, which filled the cup of terror at the end. What this can
+mean I dare not guess. I know that what I saw perish was not Mary, and
+yet in the last agony Mary’s eyes looked into mine. Whether there can
+be any one who can show the last link in this chain of awful mystery, I
+do not know, but if there be any one who can do this, you, Raymond, are
+the man. And if you know the secret, it rests with you to tell it or
+not, as you please.
+
+I am writing this letter to you immediately on my getting back to town.
+I have been in the country for the last few days; perhaps you may be
+able to guess in which part. While the horror and wonder of London was
+at its height—for “Mrs. Beaumont,” as I have told you, was well known
+in society—I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips, giving some brief
+outline, or rather hint, of what happened, and asking him to tell me
+the name of the village where the events he had related to me occurred.
+He gave me the name, as he said with the less hesitation, because
+Rachel’s father and mother were dead, and the rest of the family had
+gone to a relative in the State of Washington six months before. The
+parents, he said, had undoubtedly died of grief and horror caused by
+the terrible death of their daughter, and by what had gone before that
+death. On the evening of the day which I received Phillips’ letter I
+was at Caermaen, and standing beneath the mouldering Roman walls, white
+with the winters of seventeen hundred years, I looked over the meadow
+where once had stood the older temple of the “God of the Deeps,” and
+saw a house gleaming in the sunlight. It was the house where Helen had
+lived. I stayed at Caermaen for several days. The people of the place,
+I found, knew little and had guessed less. Those whom I spoke to on the
+matter seemed surprised that an antiquarian (as I professed myself to
+be) should trouble about a village tragedy, of which they gave a very
+commonplace version, and, as you may imagine, I told nothing of what I
+knew. Most of my time was spent in the great wood that rises just above
+the village and climbs the hillside, and goes down to the river in the
+valley; such another long lovely valley, Raymond, as that on which we
+looked one summer night, walking to and fro before your house. For many
+an hour I strayed through the maze of the forest, turning now to right
+and now to left, pacing slowly down long alleys of undergrowth, shadowy
+and chill, even under the midday sun, and halting beneath great oaks;
+lying on the short turf of a clearing where the faint sweet scent of
+wild roses came to me on the wind and mixed with the heavy perfume of
+the elder, whose mingled odour is like the odour of the room of the
+dead, a vapour of incense and corruption. I stood at the edges of the
+wood, gazing at all the pomp and procession of the foxgloves towering
+amidst the bracken and shining red in the broad sunshine, and beyond
+them into deep thickets of close undergrowth where springs boil up from
+the rock and nourish the water-weeds, dank and evil. But in all my
+wanderings I avoided one part of the wood; it was not till yesterday
+that I climbed to the summit of the hill, and stood upon the ancient
+Roman road that threads the highest ridge of the wood. Here they had
+walked, Helen and Rachel, along this quiet causeway, upon the pavement
+of green turf, shut in on either side by high banks of red earth, and
+tall hedges of shining beech, and here I followed in their steps,
+looking out, now and again, through partings in the boughs, and seeing
+on one side the sweep of the wood stretching far to right and left, and
+sinking into the broad level, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the land
+over the sea. On the other side was the valley and the river and hill
+following hill as wave on wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield, and
+white houses gleaming, and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaks
+in the north. And so at last I came to the place. The track went up a
+gentle slope, and widened out into an open space with a wall of thick
+undergrowth around it, and then, narrowing again, passed on into the
+distance and the faint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant
+summer glade Rachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? I
+did not stay long there.
+
+
+In a small town near Caermaen there is a museum, containing for the
+most part Roman remains which have been found in the neighbourhood at
+various times. On the day after my arrival in Caermaen I walked over to
+the town in question, and took the opportunity of inspecting the
+museum. After I had seen most of the sculptured stones, the coffins,
+rings, coins, and fragments of tessellated pavement which the place
+contains, I was shown a small square pillar of white stone, which had
+been recently discovered in the wood of which I have been speaking,
+and, as I found on inquiry, in that open space where the Roman road
+broadens out. On one side of the pillar was an inscription, of which I
+took a note. Some of the letters have been defaced, but I do not think
+there can be any doubt as to those which I supply. The inscription is
+as follows:
+
+DEVOMNODENT_i_
+FLA_v_IVSSENILISPOSSV_it_
+PROPTERNVP_tias_
+_qua_SVIDITSVBVMB_ra_
+
+
+“To the great god Nodens (the god of the Great Deep or Abyss) Flavius
+Senilis has erected this pillar on account of the marriage which he saw
+beneath the shade.”
+
+The custodian of the museum informed me that local antiquaries were
+much puzzled, not by the inscription, or by any difficulty in
+translating it, but as to the circumstance or rite to which allusion is
+made.
+
+
+...And now, my dear Clarke, as to what you tell me about Helen Vaughan,
+whom you say you saw die under circumstances of the utmost and almost
+incredible horror. I was interested in your account, but a good deal,
+nay all, of what you told me I knew already. I can understand the
+strange likeness you remarked in both the portrait and in the actual
+face; you have seen Helen’s mother. You remember that still summer
+night so many years ago, when I talked to you of the world beyond the
+shadows, and of the god Pan. You remember Mary. She was the mother of
+Helen Vaughan, who was born nine months after that night.
+
+Mary never recovered her reason. She lay, as you saw her, all the while
+upon her bed, and a few days after the child was born she died. I fancy
+that just at the last she knew me; I was standing by the bed, and the
+old look came into her eyes for a second, and then she shuddered and
+groaned and died. It was an ill work I did that night when you were
+present; I broke open the door of the house of life, without knowing or
+caring what might pass forth or enter in. I recollect your telling me
+at the time, sharply enough, and rightly too, in one sense, that I had
+ruined the reason of a human being by a foolish experiment, based on an
+absurd theory. You did well to blame me, but my theory was not all
+absurdity. What I said Mary would see she saw, but I forgot that no
+human eyes can look on such a sight with impunity. And I forgot, as I
+have just said, that when the house of life is thus thrown open, there
+may enter in that for which we have no name, and human flesh may become
+the veil of a horror one dare not express. I played with energies which
+I did not understand, you have seen the ending of it. Helen Vaughan did
+well to bind the cord about her neck and die, though the death was
+horrible. The blackened face, the hideous form upon the bed, changing
+and melting before your eyes from woman to man, from man to beast, and
+from beast to worse than beast, all the strange horror that you
+witness, surprises me but little. What you say the doctor whom you sent
+for saw and shuddered at I noticed long ago; I knew what I had done the
+moment the child was born, and when it was scarcely five years old I
+surprised it, not once or twice but several times with a playmate, you
+may guess of what kind. It was for me a constant, an incarnate horror,
+and after a few years I felt I could bear it no more, and I sent Helen
+Vaughan away. You know now what frightened the boy in the wood. The
+rest of the strange story, and all else that you tell me, as discovered
+by your friend, I have contrived to learn from time to time, almost to
+the last chapter. And now Helen is with her companions...
+
+THE END.
+
+
+NOTE.—Helen Vaughan was born on August 5th, 1865, at the Red House,
+Breconshire, and died on July 25th, 1888, in her house in a street off
+Piccadilly, called Ashley Street in the story.
+
+
+
+
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