*ies i 
 
 raitt RicKa^irda 
 
Ck 
 
 
 t 
 
 ;:; 
 
 '■X 
 
 
 
 S 
 
 k-t 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 X 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 :^ 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 _J 
 
 ' 
 
 •^ 
 
 1 — 1 
 
 J_ 
 
 
 s? 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '■•'.I 
 
 '^ 
 
 
 S 1 
 
 U.I 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 h—t 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 oc 
 
 
 n~s 
 
 □ 
 
 
 II 
 
 ? 
 
 h- 
 
 
 
 ;; L 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 PR603 I 
 
 .A25 
 
 S7 
 
ok is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the 
 e stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be 
 i by bringing it to the library. 
 
 ^ RET. 
 
 DATE „„_, 
 DIE *^^^ 
 
 ' Ir^A? 
 
 ' -^AR i 1 -^ 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^r 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . m 
 
 ( i 4 IS80 
 
 
 
 
 ^ » 9f^ 
 
 
 
 T'" ^ '" ' 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 ..JJU „1 
 
 n m' 
 
 
 
 
 qPl? / '-" 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 m z 
 
 2Q08 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 v 
 
 
 SEP 1 
 
 7 20Qg 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ i zutid 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/ 
 
 i-»<**^ 
 
II 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00028137695 
 
 Stories in the Dark 
 
An edition limited to 250 copies oji 
 ''Stories in the Darh' has been pre- 
 pared, printed on larger paper loith 
 tvide margins, each copy heing nwiibered 
 and signed by the author. The price is 
 5s. net. 
 
 Pttbltshir's Jlitttijuncimcnt 
 
 Ready in the Spring 
 The New Humorous Book 
 
 THE ONE BEFORE 
 By BARRY PAIN 
 
 Over Eighty Illustrations 
 BY TOM BROWNE 
 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 *^* A great demand is antici- 
 pated for ' T/ie One Before,' and 
 piirchasers are requested to place 
 their orders early. 
 
 London : GRANT RICHARDS 
 
Stories in the Dark 
 
 Barry Pain 
 
 London 
 Grant Richards 
 
 igoi 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 BILLING AND SONS LIJIITED, 
 
 GUILDFOED 
 
MARIANNA HERON-ALLEN 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE DIARY OF A CxUD . .7 
 
 THIS IS ALL . . . -26 
 
 THE MOON-SLAVE . . .45 
 
 THE GEEEN LIGHT . . .59 
 
 THE MAGNET . . .73 
 
 THE CASE OF VINCENT PYRAVHIT . 84 
 
 THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF . 92 
 
 THE END OF A SHOW . .100 
 
 THE UNDYING THING . .109 
 
 THE GRAY CAT . . 166 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 During the week there had been 
 several thunderstorms. It was after 
 the last of these^ on a cool Saturday 
 evening, that he was found at the 
 top of the hill by a shepherd. His 
 speech was incoherent and discon- 
 nected ; he gave his name correctly, 
 but could or would add no account 
 of himself. He was wet through, 
 and sat there pulling a sprig of 
 heather to pieces. The shepherd 
 afterwards said that he had great 
 difficulty in persuading him to come 
 down, and that he talked much 
 nonsense. In the path at the foot 
 of the hill he was recognised by 
 some people fi-om the farmhouse 
 where he w^as lodging, and was 
 taken back there. They had, in- 
 deed, gone out to look for him. 
 He was subsequently removed to 
 7 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 an asylum, and died insane a few 
 months later. 
 
 ***** 
 Two years afterwards, when the 
 furniture of the farmhouse came to 
 be sold by auction, there was found 
 in a little cupboard in the bedroom 
 which he had occupied an ordinary 
 penny exercise - book. This was 
 partly filled, in a beautiful and veiy 
 regular handwriting, with what 
 seems to have been something in 
 the nature of a diary, and the fol- 
 lowing are extracts from it : 
 
 June 1st. — It is absolutely essen- 
 tial to be quiet. I am beginning 
 life again, and in quite a different 
 way, and on quite a different scale, 
 and I cannot make the break sud- 
 denly. I must have a pause of a 
 few weeks in between the two 
 different lives. I saw the advertise- 
 ment of the lodgings in this farm- 
 house in an evening paper that 
 somebody had left at the restaurant. 
 That was when I was trying to make 
 8 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 the change abruptly, and I may as 
 well make a note of what happened. 
 
 After attending the funeral (which 
 seemed to me an act of hypocrisy, 
 as I hardly knew the man, but it 
 was expected of me), I came back 
 to my Charlotte Street rooms and 
 had tea. I slept well that night. 
 Then next morning I went to the 
 office at the usual hour, in my best 
 clothes, and with a deep band still 
 on ray hat. I went to Mr. Toller's 
 room and knocked. He said, ' Come 
 in,' and after I had entered : ' Can 
 I do anything for you ? What 
 do you want }' 
 
 Then I explained to him that I 
 wished to leave at once. He said : 
 
 ' This seems sudden, after thirty 
 years' service.' 
 
 ' Yes,' I replied. ' I have served 
 you faithfully for thirty years, but 
 things have changed, and I have 
 now three hundred a year of my 
 own. I will pay something in lieu 
 of notice, if you like, but I cannot 
 go on being a clerk any more. I 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 hope, Mr. Toller, you will not think 
 that I speak with any impertinence 
 to yourself, or any immodesty, but 
 I am really in the position of a 
 private gentleman.' 
 
 He looked at me curiously, and 
 as he did not say anything I re- 
 peated : 
 
 ' I think I am in the position of a 
 private gentleman.' 
 
 In the end he let me go, and said 
 very politely he was sorry to lose 
 me. I said good-bye to the other 
 clerks, even to those'who had some- 
 times laughed at what they imagined 
 to be my peculiarities. I gave the 
 better of the two office-boys a small 
 present in money. 
 
 I went back to the Charlotte 
 Street rooms, but there was nothing 
 to do there. There were figures 
 going on in my head, and my fingers 
 seemed to be running up and down 
 columns. I had a stupid idea that I 
 should be in trouble if Mr. Toller 
 were to come in and catch me like 
 that. I went out and had a capital 
 10 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 lunch, and then I went to the 
 theatre. I took a stall right in the 
 front row, and sat there all by my- 
 self. Then I had a cab to the 
 restaurant. It was too soon for 
 dinner, so I ordered a whisky-and- 
 soda, and smoked a few cigarettes. 
 The man at the table next me left 
 the evening paper in which I saw 
 the advertisement of these farm- 
 house lodgings. I read the whole 
 of the paper, but I have forgotten 
 it all except that advertisement, and 
 I could say it by heart now — all 
 about bracing air and perfect quiet 
 and the rest of it. For dinner I had 
 a bottle of champagne. The waiter 
 handed me a list, and asked which 
 I would prefer. I waved the list 
 away and said : 
 
 ' Give me the best.' 
 
 He smiled. He kept on smiling 
 all through dinner until the end ; 
 then he looked serious. He kept 
 getting more serious. Then he 
 brought two other men to look at 
 me. They spoke to me, but I did 
 11 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 not want to talk. I think I fell 
 asleep. I found myself in my rooms 
 in Charlotte Street next morning, 
 and my landlady gave me notice 
 because, she said, I had come home 
 beastly drunk. Then that adver- 
 tisement flashed into my mind about 
 the bracing air. I said : 
 
 ' I should have given you notice 
 in any case ; this is not a suitable 
 place for a gentleman.' 
 
 June Srd. — I am rather sorry that 
 I wrote down the above. It seems 
 so degrading. Howevei', it was 
 merely an act of ignorance and cai'e- 
 lessness on my part, and, besides, 
 I am writing solely for myself. To 
 myself I may own freely that I 
 made a mistake, that I was not used 
 to the wine, and that I had not 
 fully gauged what the effects would 
 be. The incident is disgusting, but 
 I simply put it behind me, and 
 think no more about it. I pay here 
 two pounds ten shillings a week for 
 my two rooms and board. I take 
 my meals, of course, by^ myself in 
 12 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 the sitting-room. It would be rather 
 cheaper if I took thein with the 
 family, but I do not care about that. 
 After all, what is two pounds ten 
 shillings a week ? Roughly speak- 
 ing, a hundred and thirty pounds a 
 year. 
 
 June nth. — I have made no entry 
 in my diary for some days. For a 
 certain period I have had no heart 
 for that or for anything else. I had 
 told the people here that I was a 
 private gentleman (which is sti-ictly 
 true), and that I was engaged in 
 literary pursuits. By the latter I 
 meant to imply no more than that 
 I am fond of reading, and that it is 
 my intention to jot down from 
 time to time my sensations and ex- 
 periences in the new life which has 
 burst upon me. At the same time 
 I have been greatly depressed. 
 Why, I can hardly explain. I have 
 been furious with myself. Sitting 
 in my own sitting-room, with a 
 gold-tipped cigarette between my 
 fingers, I have been possessed (even 
 13 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 though I recognised it as an ab- 
 surdity) by a feeUng that if Mr. 
 Toller were to come in suddenly I 
 should get up and apologize. But 
 the thing which depressed me most 
 was the open country. I have read, 
 of coursCj those penny stories about 
 the poor little ragged boys who 
 never see the green leaf in their 
 lives, and I always thought them 
 exaggerated. So they are exag- 
 gerated : there are the Embank- 
 ment Gardens with the Press Band 
 playing ; there are parks ; there 
 are Sunday-school treats. All these 
 little ragged boys see the green 
 leaf, and to say they do not is an 
 exaggeration — I am afraid a wilful 
 exaggeration. But to see the open 
 country is quite a different thing. 
 Yesterday was a fine day, and I was 
 out all day in a place called Wens- 
 ley Dale. On one spot where I 
 stood I could see for miles all round. 
 There was not a single house, or 
 tree, or human being in sight. 
 There was just myself on the top 
 14 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 of a moor ; the bigness of it gave 
 me a regular scare. I suppose I had 
 got used to walls : I had got used 
 to feeling that if I went straight 
 ahead without stopping I shoidd 
 knock against something. That 
 somehow made me feel safe. Out 
 on that great moor — ^just as if I 
 were the last man left alive in the 
 world — I do not feel safe. I find 
 the track and get home again, and 
 I tremble like a half- drowned 
 kitten until I see a wall again, or 
 somebody with a surly face who 
 does not answer civilly when I 
 speak to him. All these feelings 
 will wear off, no doubt, and I shall 
 be able to enter upon the new phase 
 of my existence without any dis- 
 comfort. But I was quite right to 
 take a few months' quiet retire- 
 ment. One must get used to things 
 gradually. It was the same with 
 the champagne — to which, by the 
 way, I had not meant to allude any 
 further. 
 
 June 20th. — It is remarkable what 
 15 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 a fascination these very large moors 
 have for me. It is not exactly fear 
 any more — indeed^ it must be the 
 I'evei'se. I do not care to be any- 
 where else. Instead of making 
 this a mere pause between two 
 different existences, I shall continue 
 it. To that I have quite made up 
 my mind. When I am out there in 
 a place where I cannot see any 
 trees, or houses, or living things, I 
 am the last person left alive in the 
 world. I am a kind of a god. 
 There is nobody to think anything 
 at all about me, and it does not 
 matter if my clothes are not right, 
 or if I drop an ' h ' — which I rarely 
 do except when speaking very 
 , quickly. I never knew what real 
 independence was before. There 
 have been too many houses around, 
 and too many people looking on. 
 It seems to me now such a common 
 and despicable thing to live among 
 people, and to have one's character 
 and one's ways altered by what 
 they are going to think. I know 
 16 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 now that when I ordered that bottle 
 of champagne I did it far more to 
 please the waiter and to make him 
 think well of me than to please 
 myself. I pity the kind of creature 
 that I was then, but I had not 
 known the open country at that 
 time. It is a grand education. If 
 Toller were to come in now I should 
 say, ' Go away. Go back to your 
 bricks and mortar, and account- 
 books, and swell friends, and white 
 waistcoats, and rubbish of that kind. 
 You cannot possibly understand me, 
 and your presence irritates me. If 
 you do not go at once I will have 
 the dog let loose upon you.' By 
 the way, that was a curious thing 
 which happened the other day. I 
 feed the dog, a mastiff, regularly, 
 and it goes out with me. We had 
 walked some way, and had reached 
 that spot Avhere a man becomes the 
 last man alive in the world. Sud- 
 denly the dog began to howl, and 
 ran off home with its tail between 
 its legs, as if it were frightened of 
 17 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 something. What was it that the 
 dog had seen and I had not seen ? 
 A ghost ? In broad daylight ? 
 Well, if the dead come back they 
 might walk here without contami- 
 nation. A few sheep, a sweep of 
 heather, a gray sky, but nothing 
 that a living man planted or built. 
 They could be alone here. If it 
 were not that it would seem a kind 
 of blasphemy, I would buy a piece 
 of land in the very middle of the 
 loneliest moor and build myself a 
 cottage there. 
 
 June 23rd. — I received a letter 
 to-day from Julia. Of course she 
 does not understand the change 
 which has taken place in me. She 
 writes as she always used to write, 
 and I find it very hard to remember 
 and realize that I liked it once, and 
 was glael when I got a letter from 
 her. That was before I got into 
 the habit of going into empty places 
 alone. The old clerking, account- 
 book life has become too small to 
 care about. The swell life of the 
 18 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 private gentleman^ to which I looked 
 forward^ is also not worth consider- 
 ing. As for Julia, I was to have 
 married her ; I used to kiss her. 
 She wrote to say that she thought 
 a great deal of me ; she still writes. 
 I don't want her. I don't want 
 anything. I have become the last 
 man alive in the world. I shall 
 leave this farmhouse very soon. 
 The people ai'e all right, but they 
 are people, and therefore insuffer- 
 able. I can no longer live or 
 breathe in a place where I see 
 people, or trees which people have 
 planted, or houses which people 
 have built. It is an ugly word — 
 people. 
 
 Julij Ilk.- — I was wrong in saying 
 that I Avas the last man alive in the 
 world. I believe I am dead. I 
 know now why the mastiff howled 
 and ran away. The whole moor is 
 full of them ; one sees them after 
 a time when one has got used to 
 the open country — or perhaps it is 
 because one is dead. Now I see 
 19 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 them by moonlight and sunlight, 
 and I am not frightened at all. I 
 think I must be dead, because there 
 seems to be a line ruled straight 
 through my life, and the things 
 which happened on the further side 
 of the line are not real. I look 
 over this diary, and see some refer- 
 ences to a Mr. Toller, and to some 
 champagne, and coming into money. 
 I cannot for the life of me think 
 what it is all about. I suppose the 
 incidents described really happened, 
 unless I was mad when I wrote 
 about them. I suppose that I am 
 not dead, since I can write in a 
 book, and eat food, and walk, and 
 sleep and wake again. But since I 
 see them now — these people that 
 fill up the lonely places — I must be 
 quite different to ordinary human 
 beings. If I am not dead, then 
 what am I ? To-day I came across 
 an old letter signed ' JuHa Jarvis '; 
 the envelope was addressed to me. 
 I wonder who on earth she was ? 
 Julij Qth. — A man in a frock-coat 
 20 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 came to see me, and talked about 
 my best interest. He wanted me, 
 so far as I could gather, to come 
 away with him somewhere. He 
 said I was all right, or, at any rate, 
 would become all right, with a little 
 care. He Avould not go away until 
 I said that I would kill him. Then 
 the woman at the farmhouse came 
 up with a white face, and I said I 
 would kill her too. I positively 
 cannot endure people. I am some- 
 thing apart, something different. I 
 am not alive, and I am not dead. I 
 cannot imagine what I am. 
 
 Julii l6th. — I have settled the 
 whole thing to my complete satis- 
 faction. I can without doubt be- 
 lieve the evidence of my own 
 senses. I have seen, and I have 
 heard. I know now Ihat I am a 
 god. I had almost thought before 
 that this might be. What was the 
 matter was that I was too diffident : 
 I had no self-confidence ; I had 
 never heard before of any man, 
 even a clerk in an old-established 
 21 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 firm, who had become a god. I 
 therefore supposed it was impossible 
 until it was distinctly proved to be. 
 I had often made up my mind to 
 go to that range of hills that lies to 
 the north. They ai-e purple when 
 one sees them far off. At nearer 
 view they are gi*ay, then they 
 become green, then one sees a 
 silver network over the green. The 
 silver network is made by streams 
 descending in the sunlight. I 
 climbed the hill slowly ; the air 
 was still, and the heat was terrible. 
 Even the water which I drank from 
 the running stream seemed flat and 
 warm. As I climbed, the storm 
 broke. I took but little notice of 
 it, for the dead that I had met 
 below on the moor had told me that 
 lightning could not touch me. At 
 the top of the hill I turned, and 
 saw the storm raging beneath my 
 feet. It is the greatest of mercies 
 that I went there, for that is where 
 the other gods gather, at such times 
 as the lightning plays between them 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOB 
 
 and the earth, and the black 
 thunder-clouds, hanging low, shut 
 them out from the sight of men. 
 
 Some of the gods were rather 
 like the big pictures that I have 
 seen on the hoardings, advertising 
 plays at the theatre, or some food 
 which is supposed to give great 
 strength and muscular development. 
 They were handsome in face, and 
 without any expression. They never 
 seemed to be angry or pleased, or 
 hurt. They sat there in great long 
 rows, resting, with the storm imaging 
 in between them and the earth. 
 One of them was a woman. I 
 spoke to her, and she told me that 
 she was older than this earth ; yet 
 she had the face of a young gii-1, 
 and her eyes were like eyes that I 
 have seen before somewhere. I 
 cannot think where I saw the eyes 
 like those of the goddess, but per- 
 haps it was in that part of my life 
 which is forgotten and ruled off 
 with a line. It gave one the 
 greatest and most majestic feelings 
 23 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 to stand there with the gods, and to 
 know that one was a god one's self, 
 and that Hghtning did not hurt one, 
 and that one would live for ever. 
 
 July 18th. — This afternoon the 
 storm returned, and I hurried to 
 the meeting-place, but it is far away 
 to the hills, and though I climbed 
 as quickly as I could the storm was 
 almost passed, and they had gone. 
 
 August 1st. — I was told in my 
 sleep that to-morrow I was to go 
 back to the hill again, and that 
 once more the gods would be there, 
 and that the storm would gather 
 round us, and would shut us from 
 profane sight, and the steely light- 
 nings would blind any eye that 
 tried to look upon us. For this 
 reason I have refused now to eat or 
 drink anything ; I am a god and 
 have no need of such things. It is 
 strange that now when I see all 
 real things so clearly and easily — 
 the ghosts of the dead that walk 
 across the moors in the sunlight and 
 the concourse of the gods on the 
 24 
 
THE DIARY OF A GOD 
 
 hill-top above the storm — men and 
 women with whom I once moved 
 before I became a god are no more 
 to me than so many black shadows. 
 I scarcely know one from the other, 
 only that the presence of a black 
 shadow anj'where near me makes 
 me angry, and I desire to kill it. 
 That will pass away ; it is probably 
 some faint relic of the thing that I 
 once was in the other side of my 
 life on the other side of the line 
 which has been ruled across it. 
 Seeing that I am a god it is not 
 natural that I can feel anger or joy 
 any more. Already all feeling of 
 joy has gone from me, for to-mor- 
 row, so I was told in ray sleep, I am 
 to be betrothed to the beautiful 
 goddess that is older than the world, 
 and yetlooks like a young girl, and 
 she is to give me a sprig of heather 
 
 as a token and 
 
 ***** 
 It was on the evening of August 1 
 he was found. 
 
 25 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 It was a ' very hot summer day. 
 The doctor's brougham had been 
 waiting in the shade of the chestnut 
 avenue leading to the big white 
 house. Then a sei'vant bi'ought out 
 a message. 
 
 'Morning, Jameson' — he knew 
 the coachman. ' Stopping to lun- 
 cheon — you're to go round to the 
 stables.' 
 
 ' I guessed as much. WTiat — is 
 he worse this morning ?' 
 
 'No, not a bit of it.' Then, 
 confidentially : ' Between ourselves, 
 there's no more the matter with 
 Mr. Wyatt nor there is with you 
 nor me.' 
 
 'So I've always supposed.' If 
 
 you can be surprised ^^at anything 
 
 you will not make a good coachman. 
 
 ' Well — see you again later.' And 
 
 26 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 the wheels crunched slowly along 
 the gravel. 
 
 In the meanthne Mr. Alexander 
 Wyatt paced the entire length of 
 his great library. He was lean, 
 tall, bent in the shoulders. His 
 hair was gray and rather too long ; 
 his face was clean-shaven and ashy 
 in colour. He looked worried — 
 hunted. 
 
 Dr. Hollingwatched himnarrowly. 
 The doctor was no younger, but his 
 hair was black. He was a giant — 
 his chest was broad and deep, and 
 he stood six foot three in his socks. 
 His face was slightly florid, and his 
 figure showed some tendency to- 
 wards corpulence. But he looked 
 like a man of the world, and not like 
 a mere sensualist — there was that 
 distinction. Under the heavy brows 
 were the eyes of a man who knows 
 what he wants to know and is quite 
 sure that he knows it. He looked 
 confident and clever. 
 
 ' My dear fellow,' said the doctor, 
 ' the long and short of it is that 
 27 c 2 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 you ought to have come to rae long 
 ago. I don't mean in Harley Street 
 —I mean here at hoixie. Of course, 
 I wouldn't see any ordinary patient 
 here ; but an old friend like you — • 
 yes, really you ought to have come 
 to me.' 
 
 ' I might have gone up to Harley 
 Street. It's only an hour avi^ay. 
 You go there and back most days 
 in the year, and I might have taken 
 the journey for once. I don't know 
 why I didn't — I had thought of it 
 — but you're always so busy.' 
 
 ' Busy ? Well, yes. But I don't 
 let myself be so busy that I can't 
 see a friend who's ill.' 
 Wyatt sighed heavily, 
 ' And now you're spoiling one of 
 yowY rare holidays for my sake. I 
 say, old man, do take a fee — a 
 proper fee — something in propor- 
 tion. ' 
 
 ' Now, don't talk like that. If 
 
 fees had had anything to do with 
 
 it, could I have come to you and 
 
 suggest-ed that it might be as well 
 
 28 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 if I just went over you ? Besides, 
 I wouldn't give up a day of my 
 holiday for any fee. Why should 
 I ? I've already made more money 
 than I shall ever spend. I'm not 
 stopping because I've got a patient. 
 I'm stopping because an old friend 
 is ill.' 
 
 ' It's very good of you — very, very 
 good.' 
 
 ' Come back to the point. Why 
 didn't you send for me before — 
 you must have known that you 
 were ill ?' 
 
 'I had ray suspicions. I — I didn't 
 want to think about it.' 
 
 ' And so you waited until, from 
 mere casual observation, I also had 
 my suspicions, and told you so. I 
 think you were foolish. Come now : 
 what were you afraid of } I haven't 
 hurt you.' 
 
 ' No, no,' said Wyatt. ' Of course 
 not. But I didn't want to know 
 that I was going to die.' There 
 was a longish pause, and Wyatt's 
 eyes grew rounder and stared. ' O, 
 29 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 my God ! O, my God !' he muttered 
 to himself. 
 
 ' Well ?' said Dr. HoUing. 
 
 He hated these exhibitions, but 
 he spoke sympathetically. 
 
 ' I can't die !' stammered Wyatt, 
 ' It — it — it mustn't be.' 
 
 'You will find ultimately that 
 you can die/ said Dr. Holling. 
 ' We all shall. If you will persist 
 in working yourself up into this 
 condition of shivering cowar — of 
 nervous panic, you will die rather 
 sooner, or possibly very much sooner, 
 than you otherwise would. Come, 
 man, you may have another ten or 
 a dozen years, if you'll avoid every 
 kind of stress. You're wealthy, 
 have no ambitions, have no hard 
 work, are not passionately attached 
 to anybody. It is highly unlikely 
 that the stress will come upon you 
 from the outside — take care that it 
 does not come from yourself.' 
 
 ' You're right, you're right. I 
 shall pull myself together,' he said ; 
 but he still sj^oke excitedly. ' I — 
 30 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 I only gave way for the moment. 
 Ten or a dozen years at the least ; 
 with absolute moderation, quiet 
 living, self-restraint, and so on, who 
 knows that it might not be a score 
 of years ?' 
 
 The doctor looked at him curiously 
 and said nothing. 
 
 ' There, you see — I'm all right. 
 I've faced the situation. And now 
 tell me exactly what's the matter 
 with me.' 
 
 ' Heart,' said the doctor laconi- 
 cally. 
 
 ' I know that,' Wyatt said irritably. 
 ' I want to know the name of the 
 disease, and if there's any complica- 
 tion.' 
 
 ' Well, I shan't tell you. You'd 
 try to look yourself up in your old 
 edition of Roberts's " Theory and 
 Practice of Medicine," and you'd 
 find something more or less like 
 yourself, and it wouldn't do you any 
 good.' 
 
 'Some doctors would have told 
 me.' 
 
 31 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 ' Hang it ! then, go and ask them/ 
 said Dr. Holling quite quietly. 
 ' Whomever else I meet in con- 
 sultation^ it's quite certain I won't 
 meet my own patient.' 
 
 ' Of course not. I only men- 
 tioned it. I'm not silly enough to 
 go to any other doctor — never 
 dreamed of it. Of course^ I know 
 very well that you're the first man 
 on heart. I'm not so ignorant of 
 medicine as you suppose.' 
 
 'Ah !' said the doctor cheerfully, 
 ' I wish you were twice as ignorant, 
 or else knew a thousand times as 
 much as you do.' 
 
 Luncheon was announced. The 
 doctor rose smiling. Poor Wyatt 
 did what he could during luncheon 
 to shake off the heavy depression 
 that weighed on him, but he did 
 not make much of a host. He 
 could only talk of his own illness, 
 and speculate on what death really 
 was. On these subjects Dr. Holling 
 had little to say, but he spoke of 
 the rising value of land in the 
 32 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 neighbourhood ; and Wyatt was 
 a landlord. Wyatt heard with a 
 wretchedly simulated cheerfulness 
 on his sad-eyed, sallow face. What 
 would it profit him though he gained 
 the whole world ? 
 
 Wyatt had been in his day the 
 brightest and best of companions ; 
 but when a man's material heart 
 within him has taken on autumnal 
 tints the man's spirits droop also. 
 Both, the doctor knew, were symp- 
 tomatic. 
 
 And he who knew this, and had 
 known the old Wyatt, was patient ; 
 but when he was being driven away 
 from the great white house he be- 
 came very sad. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 That afternoon Wyatt sat crouch- 
 ing in a big easy-chair in his library, 
 alone. It was a hot day, but he 
 had a shawl wrapped round his 
 feet : latterly his feet had been 
 always cold, as though already they 
 felt the chill of wet earth. There 
 was a pile of books on the table 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 beside him^ and on the floor. He 
 turned avidly and restlessly from 
 one to the other. There were 
 comforting books of religion ; there 
 were terrifying books of religion ; 
 there were works of metaphysics ; 
 there were blasphemous diatribes ; 
 there was science conscious of its 
 limitations. Now he would take 
 for company some drunken tinker 
 jeering at the notion of a here- 
 after, repelling by its brutal ignor- 
 ance but appealing by its complete 
 self-confidence. And now again 
 he would hear the calm voice 
 of science : ' There are beautiful 
 stories, but I dare not tell you 
 .that they are true. In some places, 
 where it has been possible to test 
 them, I have tested and found they 
 were not true. As to the rest, 
 those stories seem more beautiful 
 than probable. I still wait for veri- 
 fication or disproof — not with folded 
 hands, but working at other things.' 
 He had always feared death, and 
 now for many long days and nights 
 34 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 he had busied himself in this futile 
 search for something certain about 
 it. He heard a hundred voices all 
 crying differently, and knew not to 
 which he should listen. 
 
 He used to make attempts, from 
 time to time, to pull himself to- 
 gether ; he made one now. 
 
 ' What does all this concern me ?' 
 he said aloud. ' I'm not going to 
 die. Holling said so. Holling gave 
 me twenty years, with reasonable 
 care, and he knows what he is talk- 
 ing about.' He pushed the books 
 aside contemptuously. ' Pack of 
 nonsense !' He picked up instead 
 a catalogue that his wine merchant 
 had sent him. There was some 
 port of a fairly recent vintage that 
 he wished to put down. ' That's 
 it,' he said, marking the catalogue 
 with pencil, ' we'll say fifty dozen.' 
 He rubbed his chilly hands together, 
 and hummed a light tune. 
 
 At five his man Jackson brought 
 him in a glass of whisky-and-water, 
 carefully measured. Wyatt had got 
 35 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 into the habit of drinking a good 
 deal of strong tea in the afternoon 
 while he pottered over his collec- 
 tions — one philatelic^ the other 
 eighteenth - century autographs. 
 The doctor had forbidden tea, and 
 Wyattj even when he was pulling 
 himself together, obeyed the doctor. 
 Rolling had forbidden late hours 
 also. Wyatt had induced— actually 
 induced — the habit of insomnia. 
 Before the doctor's interference he 
 would never go to bed before two 
 or three in the morning. After 
 one of his own delightful dinners, 
 or if he had been dining out, he 
 would still sit up. He professed 
 that these hours were of incalcu- 
 lable value — that he could not live 
 in society unless for a little time 
 each day he lived absolutely alone. 
 All the lights were put out except 
 in the library ; the rest of the house 
 went to sleep. Wyatt smoked, read, 
 thought about things. At intervals 
 he sipped strong coffee. It was 
 only when he found himself unable 
 36 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 to keep HAvake that he Ht his candle 
 and went upstairs. Every nighty or 
 early morning, as his candle lit the 
 long mirror on the landing, he saw 
 himself reflected, and the reflection 
 always came as a surprise. He 
 never looked as he supposed that 
 he looked ; sometimes the reflec- 
 tion seemed almost unrecognis- 
 able. 
 
 ' I can't sleep before three in the 
 morning,' Wyatt had maintained to 
 the doctor. 
 
 ' Then it must be morphia,' said 
 H oiling. 
 
 He called that night with a 
 hypodermic syringe, and that night 
 Wyatt Avent up to bed at ten o'clock 
 and slept at once. 
 
 ' But I mustn't go on with mor- 
 phia, of course,' said Wyatt know- 
 ingly. 
 
 ' It won't be necessary,' said 
 Holling. ' You see, after I've given 
 it you for three nights, I shall have 
 broken thi'ough your habit. Then 
 you at once retui'n to the normal 
 37 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 state, and go to sleep at the ordinary 
 time.' 
 
 The doctor reeled off this absolute 
 nonsense with an air of the utmost 
 gravity and conviction. He knew 
 his patient. He had never given 
 him any morphia at all — he had 
 punctured the skin, but injected 
 nothing. Wyatt's insomnia yielded 
 completely to discreet and masterly 
 humbug and the abolition of his 
 after-dinner coffee. 
 
 Strong tea and late hours were 
 quite given up now. Wyatt was 
 positively anxious to give things 
 up ; in his mad terror of death he 
 had grown to regai'd it as a monster 
 to be appeased by sacrifice. He 
 had a notion — ^vague but deeply 
 rooted — that the more he gave up 
 the longer he would live. He was 
 almost disappointed that the doctor 
 did not forbid stimulants. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Jackson, W)^att's servant, had 
 been with him for twenty years. 
 When Wyatt was alone it was Jack- 
 38 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 son himself who made the after- 
 dinner coffee — for on this point 
 M^yatt mistrusted women. Jackson 
 was a creature of habit. For over 
 a week he had diHgently remem- 
 bered that coifee was forbidden. 
 To-night he forgot it ; habit asserted 
 itselfj and twenty minutes after 
 VVyatt had left the dining-room for 
 the library, Jackson entered the 
 library with the coffee. He was 
 considerably startled at his recep- 
 tion. 
 
 Fits of deep depression sometimes 
 alternate with fits of extreme irrita- 
 tion. Wyatt flew into a mad rage. 
 He swore the wretched man was 
 trying to kill him, ordered him out 
 of the house, and abused him viru- 
 lently, loudly, and at length. ' Go, 
 go !' he shrieked finally. 
 
 Jackson conveyed the news to the 
 kitchen that there was only one 
 thing the matter with Mr. Wyatt — 
 he was clean off his head, thatwas all. 
 
 As Jackson left the library Wyatt 
 dropped into a chair, his face con- 
 2>^ 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 torted, covered with sweat, bending 
 forward, his hands tightly fixed 
 against his chest. That awful 
 anginal pain ! No, it had never 
 been like that before. It must mean 
 death. Ah, if he could only get 
 to that bell ! He tried to call. 
 The woi'ds, ' Dr. Holling ... at 
 once,' came out in a whisper. 
 
 The pain ceased, almost suddenly. 
 A strange calm came over him, and 
 for the first time in manj' days he 
 thought of other people. Dr. 
 Holling } Of course he would not 
 send for him. It would be too bad, 
 at that time of night — altogether 
 too bad. Besides, it was his own 
 •fault. He had given way to temper, 
 and had been punished for it. Why, 
 he might have died. Upon his word, 
 it would have served him right if 
 he had died. Poor Jackson ! It 
 was the first time in his life he had 
 spoken to Jackson like that. Well, 
 when he came to die Jackson was 
 remembered in his will, and would 
 forgive him. After all, why live so 
 40 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 long, at such care, with such trouble? 
 Nature calls — ohej cheerfully. 
 
 And the calm became drowsiness, 
 and the drowsiness became sleep 
 all very quickly. It was a lovely 
 sleep, with a consciousness of well- 
 being permeating its faintly- 
 sketched dreams. 
 
 Jackson looked in at ten o'clock, 
 at a quarter-past, at twenty-five 
 minutes past, and at half-past. 
 
 Then he sought Mrs. Palfrey, the 
 housekeeper. 
 
 ' He's still asleep,' said Jackson. 
 
 ' You're sure it's sleep ?' said Mrs. 
 Palfrey gloomily. 
 
 ' Oh, I leave to-morrow, anyhow, 
 whatever he says,' said Jackson. 
 ' It's the responsibility I can't stand. 
 It's wearing me. But come and 
 see for yourself.' 
 
 They opened the library door 
 cautiously and peered in. 
 
 'The top of his shirt-front's 
 moving,' said Mrs. Palfrey in an 
 undertone. ' He's asleep.' 
 
 ' Don't he look awful ? I 'on't 
 41 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 wake him. I sweav I 'on't Avake 
 him. ' 
 
 ' Better not. Put his candle on 
 the table, by the lamp ; cough, as 
 if accidental, as you go out. Then 
 if he wakes, so much the better. 
 If not, we'll all go to bed, and 
 you'll put the lights out, same as in 
 the old days.' 
 
 Jackson shivered, and followed 
 this advice carefully. The cough 
 (as if accidental) was unavailing, 
 and the lights were put out. Only 
 in the libraiy the lamplight fell 
 on the gleaming shirt-front, still 
 moving. And on the landing the 
 full-length mirror waited, its eyes 
 closed in the darkness, but ready 
 to wake as the lighted candle came 
 slowly up the staircase, and to reflect 
 in a moment the figure of the master 
 of the house, dishevelled, late, on 
 his way to bed. 
 
 * * * * -K- 
 
 He was awake. The lamp had 
 burned itself out ; the dawn, the 
 early midsummer daAvn, was already 
 42 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 advanced ; its light came, tempered 
 yet sufficient, through the ugly 
 Venetian blinds. From the garden 
 and the country beyond came the 
 shrill concert of innumerable birds. 
 A heavy cart jolted and bumped to 
 early work on some distant road. 
 No, there was no need of the candle ; 
 he would go to bed by daylight, with 
 that delightful sense of well-being, 
 that firm conviction that there was 
 no good in worry or argument, still 
 comforting him. 
 
 Ah ! how often at this hour he 
 had trod the stairs, with a fantastic 
 curiosity to see what he looked like 
 in the tall mirror. By this time 
 his head should have appeared in 
 it, coming close to the Japanese 
 cabinet. There in the mirror 
 gleamed the pale gold of the 
 cabinet, and there was the blue- 
 and-white of the tall Oriental vase, 
 and there were the masses of dark 
 shadow beyond. Alexander Wyatt 
 found all there but himself. Him 
 only the mirror gave back no more. 
 43 
 
THIS IS ALL 
 
 Back ! back to the library as in a 
 panic. Something has happened ! 
 
 And there in the hbrary the spirit 
 of Alexander Wyatt, that the mirror 
 saw not, found in the easy-chair the 
 huddled body, dressed in clothes that 
 no longer moved to the breathing. 
 
 ' I am dead/ said Alexander Wyatt, 
 'and this— this — this is all.' 
 
 44 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 The Princess Viola had^ even in her 
 childhood, an inevitable submission 
 to the dance; a rhythmical madness 
 in her blood answered hotly to the 
 dance music, swaying her, as the 
 wind sways trees, to movements of 
 perfect sympathy and grace. 
 
 For the rest, she had her beauty 
 and her long hair, that reached to 
 her knees, and was thought lovable ; 
 but she was never very fervent and 
 vivid unless she was dancing ; at 
 other times there almost seemed to 
 be a touch of lethargy upon her. 
 Now, when she was sixteen years 
 old, she was beti-othed to the Prince 
 Hugo. With others the betrothal 
 was merely a question of state. 
 With her it was merely a question 
 of obedience to the wishes of 
 authority ; it had been arranged ; 
 4.-; 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 Hugo was comme ci, comme qa — no 
 god in her eyes ; it did not matter. 
 But with Hugo it was quite different 
 — he loved her. 
 
 The betrothal was celebrated by 
 a banquetj and afterwards by a 
 dance in the great hall of the 
 palace. From this dance the Prin- 
 cess soon made her escape, quite 
 discontented, and went to the 
 furthest part of the palace gardens, 
 where she could no longer hear the 
 music calling her. 
 
 ' Thej^ are all right/ she said to 
 herself as she thought of the men 
 she had left, ' but they cannot 
 dance. Mechanically they are all 
 right ; they have learned it and 
 don't make childish mistakes ; but 
 they are only one - two - three 
 machines. They haven't the in- 
 spiration of dancing. It is so dif- 
 ferent when I dance alone.' 
 
 She wandered on until she reached 
 
 an old forsaken maze. It had been 
 
 planned by a former king. All 
 
 round it was a high crumbling wall 
 
 46 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 with foxgloves growing on it. The 
 maze itself had all its paths bordered 
 with high opaque hedges ; in the 
 very centre was a circular open 
 space with tall pine-trees growing 
 round it. Many years ago the clue 
 to the maze had been lost ; it was 
 but rarely now that anyone entered 
 it. Its gravel paths were green 
 with weeds, and in some places the 
 hedges, spreading beyond their 
 borders, had made the way almost 
 impassable. 
 
 For a moment or two Viola stood 
 peering in at the gate — a nax*row 
 gate with curiously twisted bars of 
 wrought iron surmounted by a 
 heraldic device. Then the whim 
 seized her to enter the maze and 
 try to find the space in the centre. 
 She opened the gate and went in. 
 
 Outside everything was uncannily 
 visible in the light of the full moon, 
 but here in the dark shaded alleys 
 the night was conscious of itself. 
 She soon forgot her purpose, and 
 wandei'ed about quite aimlessly, 
 47 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 sometimes forcing her way where 
 the brambles had flung a laced 
 barrier across her path, and a drag- 
 ging mass of convolvulus struck wet 
 and cool upon her cheek. As 
 chance would have it she suddenly 
 found herself standing under the 
 tall pines, and looking at the open 
 space that formed the goal of the 
 maze. She was pleased that she 
 had got there. Here the ground 
 was carpeted with sand, fine and, as 
 it seemed, beaten hard. From the 
 summer night sky immediately 
 above, the moonlight, unobstructed 
 here, streamed straight down upon 
 .the scene. 
 
 Viola began to think about danc- 
 ing. Over the dry, smooth sand her 
 little satin shoes moved easily, step- 
 ping and gliding, circling and step- 
 ping, as she hummed the tune to 
 which they moved. In the centre 
 of the space she paused, looked at 
 the wall of dark trees all round, at 
 the shining stretches of silvery sand 
 and at the moon above. 
 48 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 ' My beautiful, moonlit, lonelj'^, 
 old dancing-room, why did I never 
 find you before ?' she cried ; ' but,' 
 she added, ' you need music — there 
 must be music here.' 
 
 In her fantastic mood she 
 stretched her soft, clasped hands 
 upwards towards the moon. 
 
 ' Sweet moon,' she said in a kind 
 of mock prayer, ' make your white 
 light come down in music into my 
 dancing-room here, and I will dance 
 most deliciously for you to see.' 
 She flung her head backward and 
 let her hands fall ; her eyes were 
 half closed, and her mouth was a 
 kissing mouth. ' Ah ! sweet moon,' 
 she whispered, ' do this for me, and 
 I will be your slave ; I will be what 
 you will.' 
 
 Quite suddenly the air was filled 
 with the sound of a grand invisible 
 orchestra. Viola did not stop to 
 wonder. To the music of a slow 
 saraband she swayed and postured. 
 In the music there was the regular 
 beat of small drums and a perpetual 
 49 D 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 drone. The air seemed to be filled 
 with the perfume of some bitter 
 spice. Viola could fancy almost 
 that she saw a smouldering camp- 
 fire and heard far off the roar of 
 some desolate wild beast. She let 
 her long hair fall, raising the heavy 
 strands of it in either hand as she 
 moved slowly to the laden music. 
 Slowly her body swayed with drowsy 
 grace, slowly her satin shoes slid 
 over the silver sand. 
 
 The music ceased with a clash of 
 cymbals. Viola rubbed her eyes. 
 She fastened her hair up carefully 
 again. Suddenly she looked up, 
 almost imperiously. 
 
 ' Music ! more music !' she cried. 
 
 Once more the music came. This 
 time it was a dance of caprice, pelt- 
 ing along over the violin-strings, 
 leaping, laughing, wanton. Again 
 an illusion seemed to cross her eyes. 
 An old king was watching her, a 
 king with the sordid history of the 
 exhaustion of pleasure written on 
 his flaccid face. A hook-nosed 
 50 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 courtier by his side settled the 
 ruffles at his wrists and mumbled, 
 ' Ravissant ! Quel malheur que la 
 vieillesse !' It was a strange illu- 
 sion. Faster and faster she sped to 
 the musiCj stepping, spinning, pirou- 
 etting ; the dance was light as 
 thistle-down, fierce as fire, smooth 
 as a rapid stream. 
 
 The moment that the music 
 ceased Viola became horribly afraid. 
 She turned and fled away from the 
 moonlit space, through the trees, 
 down the dark alleys of the maze, 
 not heeding in the least which turn 
 she took, and yet she found herself 
 soon at the outside iron gate. From 
 thence she ran through the palace 
 garden, hardly ever pausing to take 
 breath, until she reached the palace 
 itself. In the eastern sky the first 
 signs of dawn were showing ; in the 
 palace the festivities were drawing 
 to an end. As she stood alone in 
 the outer hall Prince Hugo came 
 towards her. 
 
 ' Where have you been, Viola ?' 
 51 D 2 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 he said sternly. ' What have you 
 been doing ?' 
 
 She stamped her Httle foot. 
 
 ' I will not be questioned/ she 
 replied angrily. 
 
 ' I have some right to question/ 
 he said. 
 
 She laughed a little. 
 
 ' For the first time in my life/ she 
 said, ' I have been dancing.' 
 
 He turned away in hopeless 
 silence. 
 
 * * -/r * * 
 
 The months passed away. Slowly 
 a great fear caiTie over Viola, a fear 
 that would hardly ever leave her. 
 For every month at the full moon, 
 whether she would or no, she found 
 herself driven to the maze, through 
 its mysterious walks into that 
 strange dancing-room. And when 
 she was there the- music began 
 once more, and once more she 
 danced most deliciously for the 
 moon to see. The second time 
 that this happened she had merely 
 thought that it was a recurrence of 
 52 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 her own whim, and that the music 
 was but a trick that the imagination 
 had chosen to repeat. The third 
 time frightened her, and she knew 
 that the force that sways the tides 
 had strange power over her. The 
 fear grew as the year fell, for each 
 month the music went on for a 
 longer time — each month some of 
 the pleasure had gone from the 
 dance. On bitter nights in winter 
 the moon called her and she came, 
 when the breath was vapour, and 
 the trees that circled her dancing- 
 room were black bare skeletons, 
 and the frost was cruel. She dared 
 not tell anyone, and yet it was with 
 difficulty that she kept her secret. 
 Somehow chance seemed to favour 
 her, and she always found a way to 
 return from her midnight dance to 
 her own room' without being ob- 
 served. Each month the summons 
 seemed to be more imperious and 
 urgent. Once when she was alone 
 on her knees before the lighted 
 altar in the private chapel of the 
 53 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 palace she suddenly felt that the 
 words of the familiar Latin prayer 
 had gone from her memory. She 
 rose to her feet, she sobbed bitterly, 
 but the call had come and she could 
 not resist it. She passed out ot 
 the chapel and down the palace- 
 gardens. How madly she danced 
 that night ! 
 
 She was to be married in the 
 spring. She began to be more 
 gentle with Hugo now. She had a 
 blind hope that when they were 
 mai'ried she might be able to tell 
 him about it, and he might be able 
 to protect hei', for she had always 
 known him to be fearless. She 
 could not love him, but she tried to 
 be good to him. One day he men- 
 tioned to her that he had tried to 
 find his way to the centre of the 
 maze, and had failed. She smiled 
 faintly. If only she could fail ! But 
 she never did. 
 
 On the night before the wedding, 
 day she had gone to bed and slept 
 peacefully, thinking Avith her last 
 54 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 waking moments of Hugo. Over- 
 head the full moon came up the 
 sky. Quite suddenly Viola was 
 wakened with the impulse to fly to 
 the dancing-room. It seemed to bid 
 her hasten with breathless speed. 
 She flung a cloak around her, 
 slipped her naked feet into her 
 dancing-shoes, and hurried forth. 
 No one saw her or heard her — on 
 the marble staircase of the palace, 
 on down the terraces of the garden, 
 she ran as fast as she could. A 
 thorn-plant caught in her cloak, 
 but she sped on, tearing it free ; a 
 sharp stone cut through the satin 
 of one shoe, and her foot was 
 wounded and bleeding, but she 
 sped on. As the pebble that is 
 flung from the cliff must fall until 
 it reaches the sea, as the white 
 ghost-moth must come in from cool 
 hedges and scented darkness to a 
 burning death in the lamp by which 
 you sit so late — so Viola had no 
 choice. The moon called her. The 
 moon drew her to that circle of 
 55 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 hard, bright sand and the pitiless 
 music. 
 
 It was brilliant, rapid music to- 
 night. Viola threw off her cloak 
 and danced. As she did so, she 
 saw that a shadow lay over a frag- 
 ment of the moon's edge. It was 
 the night of a total eclipse. She 
 heeded it not. The intoxication of 
 the dance was on her. She was all 
 in white ; even her face was pale in 
 the moonlight. Every movement 
 was full of poetry and grace. 
 
 The music would not stop. She 
 had grown deathly weary. It seemed 
 to her that she had been dancing 
 for hours, and the shadow had 
 nearly covered the moon's face, so 
 that it was almost dark. She could 
 hardly see the trees around her. 
 She went on dancing, stepping, 
 spinning, pirouetting, held by the 
 merciless music. 
 
 It stopped at last, j ust when the 
 
 shadow had quite covered the moon's 
 
 face, and all was dark. But it 
 
 stopped only for a moment, and 
 
 5Q 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 then began again. This time it 
 was a slow, passionate waltz. It 
 was useless to resist ; she began to 
 dance once more. As she did so 
 she uttered a sudden shrill scream 
 of horror, for in the dead darkness 
 a hot hand had caught her own and 
 whirled her round, and she was vo 
 longer dancing alone. 
 
 * -K- * * * 
 
 The search for the missing Prin- 
 cess lasted during the whole of 
 the following day. In the evening 
 Prince Hugo, his face anxious and 
 firmly set, passed in his search the 
 iron gate of the maze, and noticed 
 on the stones beside it the stain of a 
 drop of blood. Within the gate was 
 another stain. He followed this 
 clue, which had been left by Viola's 
 wounded foot, until he reached that 
 open space in the centre that had 
 served Viola for her dancing-room. 
 It was quite empty. He noticed 
 that the sand round the edges was 
 all worn down, as though someone 
 had danced there, round and round, 
 57 
 
THE MOON-SLAVE 
 
 for a long time. But no separate 
 footprint was distinguishable there. 
 Just outside this track, however, 
 he saw two footprints clearly 
 defined close together : one was 
 the print of a tiny satin shoe ; the 
 other was the print of a large naked 
 foot — a cloven foot. 
 
 58 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 The man looked down at the figure 
 of the woman on the couch. The 
 little silver clock on the mantel- 
 piece began to chime ; he could 
 not bear the sound of it. He flew 
 at the clock like a madman, and 
 dashed it on the ground, and 
 stamped on it. Then he drew 
 doAvn the blind, and opened the 
 door and listened ; there was no 
 one on the staircase. Silence 
 seemed now as intolerable to him 
 as sound had been a moment before. 
 He tried to whistle, but his lips were 
 too dry and made only a ridiculous 
 hissing sound. Closing the door 
 behind him, he ran down the stair- 
 case and out into the street. The 
 woman on the couch never moved 
 or spoke. It was late in the after- 
 noon ; the light from the low sun 
 59 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 penetrated the green blind and 
 took from it a horrible colour that 
 seemed to tint the face of the 
 woman on the couch. Flies came 
 out of the dark corners of the room, 
 sulkily busy, crawling and buzzing. 
 One very little fly passed back- 
 wards and forwards over the 
 woman's white ringed hand ; it 
 moved rapidly, a black speck. 
 
 Outside in the street, the man 
 stepped from the pavement into 
 the roadway ; a cabman shouted 
 and swore at him, and someone 
 dragged him back by the arm, and 
 told him roughly to look where he 
 was going. He stood still for a 
 minute, and rubbed his forehead 
 with his hand. This would not do. 
 The critical moment had come, the 
 moment when, above all things, it 
 was necessary that his nerve should 
 be perfect and his thoughts clear ; 
 and now, when he tried to think, a 
 picture came before the thought 
 and filled his mind — the pictui'e of 
 the white face with the green light 
 60 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 upon it. And his heart was beating 
 too fastj and, it seemed to him, 
 almost audibly. He began to feel 
 his pulse, counting the strokes out 
 loud as he stood on the kerb ; then 
 he was conscious that two or three 
 boys and loafers were standing in a 
 little group watching him and 
 laug!.-iing at him. One of the 
 loafers handed him his hat ; it had 
 fallen off when he dodged back on 
 to the pavement, and he had not 
 noticed it. He took the hat, and 
 felt for some coins to give the man. 
 He found a half-crown and a half- 
 penny ; he held them in his hand, 
 and stared at them, and forgot 
 why he had wanted them. Then 
 he suddenly remembered and gave 
 them. There was a loud yell of 
 laughter ; the boys and loafers were 
 running away, and he heard one of 
 them shouting, ' Let the old stinker 
 out a bit too soon, ain't they .''' and 
 another, ' Garn ! 'E's tight — that's 
 all's wrong with 'im.' 
 ^Again he told himself that this 
 61 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 would not do. He must not think 
 of the past — the awful j^ast. He 
 must not think of the future — of 
 his schemes for escape. He must 
 concentrate his thoughts on the 
 present moment, until he could get 
 to some place where he could be 
 alone. Yes, Regent's Park would 
 do well, and it was near. He 
 brushed his hat with his coat-sleeve, 
 put it on, and walked. He thought 
 about the movement of his feet, 
 and the best way to cross the road, 
 and how to avoid running into 
 people, and how to behave as other 
 people in the street behaved. All 
 the things that one generally does 
 unconsciously and automatically re- 
 quired now for their conduct a 
 distinct mental effort. 
 
 As he walked on, his mind seemed 
 to clear a little. He reached a spot 
 in Regent's Park where he could lie 
 down in the grass with no one near 
 him, out of sight. ' Now,' he said 
 to himself, ' I need concentrate my 
 thoughts no longer — I can let them 
 62 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 go.' In a second he had gone 
 rapidly through the past — the 
 jealousy that had burned in his 
 heart, and the way that he had 
 quieted himself and made his 
 scheme, and carried it out slowly. 
 It had been finished that afternoon, 
 when he had lost control over him- 
 self, and 
 
 Through the transparent leaves of 
 the tree near him the sun came with 
 a greenish glare. He shuddered 
 and turned away, so that he could 
 not see it. 
 
 Yes, he was to escape— he had 
 made all the arrangements for that. 
 He drew from his side-pocket a roll 
 of notes, and counted them, and 
 entered the numbers in his pocket- 
 book. He had changed a cheque 
 for fifty pounds at the bank that 
 morning. The police would find 
 that out, and endeavour to trace 
 him b}^ discovering where the notes 
 with those numbers were changed. 
 That was one of his means of escape. 
 He would see to it that the notes 
 63 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 were never changed by himself, or 
 in any town where he had been or 
 was hkely to be. He was going to 
 sacrifice those ten bank-notes to put 
 the police on a wrong scent. He 
 had plenty of money ready in gold 
 — in gold that could not be traced 
 — for his own needs. He chuckled 
 to himself. It was brilliant, this 
 scheme for providing a wrong scent, 
 for making the very carefulness and 
 astuteness of the detectives the 
 stumbling-block in their way ; and 
 it would be so easy to get the notes 
 changed by others — the dishonesty 
 of ordinary human beings would 
 serve his purpose. 
 
 His mood had changed now to 
 one of exultation. He told himself 
 time after time that he was right. 
 The law would condemn him, but 
 morally he was right, and had only 
 punished the woman as she deserved 
 to be punished. Only, he must 
 escape. And — yes — he must not 
 forget. 
 
 He looked round. There was still 
 64 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 no one near; but his position did not 
 satisfy him. Not a person must see 
 what he was going to do next. He 
 went on, and found a spot near the 
 canal, where he seemed to be out 
 of sight, and more secure from 
 interruption. Then he took fi-om 
 his pocket a little looking-glass and 
 a pair of scissors. Very carefully 
 he cut away his beard and mous- 
 tache, that hid the thin-lipped, wide 
 mouth, and the small weak chin. 
 He cut as close as he could, and 
 when he had finished he looked 
 like a man who had neglected to 
 shave for a day or two. A barber 
 would shave him now without sus- 
 picion. He was satisfied with the 
 operation. The glass showed him 
 a face so changed that it startled 
 him to look at it. He glanced at 
 his watch — it was time to start for 
 the station, where his luggage had 
 been waiting since the day before, 
 if he meant to get shaved on the 
 way there. 
 
 He walked a little way, and sat 
 65 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 down again. ' How well every- 
 thing has been thought out !' he 
 said to himself. All would succeed. 
 With a new name^ and in another 
 country, without that drunken, faith- 
 less, beautiful woman, he would grow 
 happy again. He had only meant 
 to sit down for a minute or two, but 
 his thoughts rambled and became 
 nonsense, and suddenly he fell into 
 a deep sleep. He had been over- 
 taxed. 
 
 An hour passed. The train that 
 he had intended to take steamed 
 out of the station, and still he slept. 
 It grew dusk, and still he slept. 
 When the park-keeper touched him 
 on the shoulder, he half woke, and 
 spoke querulously. Then conscious- 
 ness came back, and slowly he 
 realized what had happened. 
 
 As he walked slowly out of the 
 park, his mind refreshed with sleep, 
 he for the first time realized some- 
 thing else. In the awful moment 
 when he had left the woman, he 
 had broken down, and forgotten 
 
 m 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 everything. The bag of gold was 
 still lying on the table of the room 
 with the green blind. He must go 
 back and get it. It would be 
 horrible to re-enter that room, but 
 it could not be helped. He dared 
 not change the notes himself, and 
 in any case that amount would be 
 insufficient. He must have the 
 gold. 
 
 It added, he told himself, slightly 
 to the risk of discovery, but only 
 slightly. His servants had all been 
 sent out and were not to return 
 until half-past nine. No one else 
 could have entered the house. He 
 would find everything as he left it 
 — the gold on the table and the 
 figure of the woman on the couch. 
 He would let himself in with his 
 latch-key. No passer-by would take 
 any notice of so ordinary an incident. 
 He had no occasion to hurry now, 
 and he turned into the first barber's 
 shop that he saw. His mind was as 
 alert now as it had been when he 
 first formed his scheme. 
 67 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 ' Let me have your best razor/ 
 he said; 'my skin's tender; in 
 fact, for the last two or three days 
 I haven't been able to shave at 
 all.' 
 
 He chatted with the barber about 
 horse-racingj and said that he him- 
 self had a couple of horses in train- 
 ing. Then he inquired the way to 
 Piccadilly, saying that he was a 
 stranger in London, and seemed to 
 take careful note of the barber's 
 directions. 
 
 He walked briskly away from the 
 shop towards his own house. A 
 comfortable- looking, ruddy -faced 
 Avoman was coming towards him. 
 A shaft of green light from a 
 chemist's shop-window fell full on 
 her face as she passed, and the 
 horror came back upon him. It 
 was with difficulty that he checked 
 himself from crying out. He hurried 
 on, but that hideous light seemed 
 to linger in his eyes and to haunt 
 him. 
 
 ' Keep quiet !' he kept saying to 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 himself under his breath. ' Steady 
 yourself ; don't be a fool !' 
 
 There was an Italian restaurant 
 near^ and he went in and drank a 
 couple of glasses of cognac. Then 
 only was he able to go on. 
 
 As he turned the corner where 
 his house came into sight he looked 
 up. All the house was dark but for 
 one great green eye in the centre 
 that looked at him. There were 
 lights in that room. 
 
 He stood still close to a lamp- 
 post, just touching it to keep his 
 balance. He spoke to himself 
 aloud : 
 
 ' It's green . . . it's green . . . 
 someone's there !' 
 
 A working man passed him, heard 
 him mumbling, looked at him curi- 
 ously, and went on. 
 
 The great green eye stared at 
 him. and fascinated him. Then 
 other lights darted about, red lights, 
 white lights. Someone must be 
 going up and down the staircase 
 and passages. Had she got off the 
 69 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 couch ? Was the dead woman walk- 
 ing ? How his head throbbed ! 
 There were two nerves that seemed 
 to sound hke two consecutive notes 
 on a piano, struck in slow alterna- 
 tion, then quickening to a rapid 
 shake — whirr ! whirr ! Now the two 
 notes were struck together, a re- 
 peated discord, thumped out — 
 clatter ! clatter ! No, the sound 
 was outside in the street, and it 
 was the sound of people running. 
 There were boj^s with excited eyes 
 and white faces, and blowsy, laugh- 
 ing women, and a little old feiTet- 
 faced man who coughed as he ran. 
 A police-whistle screamed. 
 
 In front of the door of the house 
 a black mass grew up, getting 
 quickly bigger and bigger. It was 
 a crowd of people swaying back- 
 wards and forwards, kej^t back by 
 the police. 
 
 The police ! He was discovered, 
 
 then. He must get away at once, 
 
 not wait another moment. Only 
 
 the green light was looking at him. 
 
 70 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 ' Stop that light !' he called. 
 
 No one noticed him. The green 
 light went on glimmei'ing, and drew 
 him nearer. He had to get thei'e. 
 He was on the outskirts of the 
 ci-owd now. 
 
 Why would not the crowd let him 
 pass .'' Could not they hear that he 
 was being called .'' He pushed his 
 way, struggling, dragging people on 
 one side. There were angry voices, 
 a hum growing louder and louder. 
 He caught a woman by the neck 
 and flung her aside. She screamed. 
 Someone struck him in the face, 
 and he tried to strike back. Down ! 
 He was down on the road. The air 
 was stifling and stinking there. He 
 tried to get up, and was forced back. 
 Ah ! now he was up again, his coat 
 torn off his back, muddy, bleeding, 
 fighting, spitting, howling like a 
 madman. 
 
 ' Damn you ! damn you all !' 
 
 The crowd was a storm all round 
 him, tossing him here and there. 
 Again and again he was struck. 
 71 
 
THE GREEN LIGHT 
 
 There was blood streaming over his 
 eyes, and through the blood and 
 mingled with blood he saw the 
 green light looking. 
 
 There came a sudden lull. A 
 couple of policemen stood by him, 
 and one of them had him by the 
 arm, and asked him what he was 
 doing. He began to cry, sobbing 
 like a child. 
 
 ' Take me up there,' he said, 
 panting, ' where the green light is ; 
 it's the dead woman calling.' 
 
 The policeman stood for a moment 
 hesitating. For a moment the 
 crowd was nnotionless and silent. 
 Then one of those white-faced boys 
 shrank further back whispering : 
 
 ' It's the man !' 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 [Subsequent to the inquest on the body 
 of tlie Rev. Ingram Shallow, who shot 
 himself in the churchyard of St. John's, 
 Ilworthy, Bedfordshire, on the evening of 
 October 14, the following paper was found 
 at his lodgings in the village, and is here 
 published for the first time. It will be 
 remembered that at the inquest the usual 
 verdict of temporary insanity was re- 
 turned. ] 
 
 Thursday, October 6. — The world is 
 still ringing with the news of the 
 ghastly accident to the express the 
 night before last. The Times has a 
 column and a half. Nothing else is 
 spoken of in the village. Yesterday 
 afternoon I went over on my bicycle 
 to witness the scene of the accident. 
 Of course, the more horrible traces 
 of it had already been removed ; 
 the screams of the injured and 
 dying and the sight of mangled 
 bodies, about which we read in the 
 73 E 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 papers, would have been too much 
 for me. The up line was already 
 clear, and it was expected the down 
 line would also be clear in the course 
 of a couple of hours. There was a 
 perfect army of men at work, with 
 evei'y kind of ingenious contrivance 
 for removing the heavy obstacles. 
 All along the embankment frag- 
 ments of the debris are still strewn. 
 At a distance of at least forty yards 
 from the point where the accident 
 actually happened I found, among 
 some wet grass and fern, a part of 
 one of those plates they have up in 
 the carriages, giving the nuiTiber 
 that the carriage is intended to 
 carry. I have, often noticed, when 
 standing in the station, the appeai*- 
 ance of strength which locomotives 
 and carriages on the fast trains 
 always have. Yet here one saw 
 all this strength of no avail. The 
 engine and the carriages were 
 broken up just like a child's toys. 
 I do most sincerely hope and believe 
 that it was nobody in Ilworthy who 
 74 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 was responsible for the disaster. 
 Whoever it is, I do trust and pray 
 that he may be discovered, and that 
 he may pay with his own life for the 
 lives of those hundreds his fiendish 
 action has sent, without a moment 
 of warning, into etei'nity. 
 
 Friday, October 7. — The Vicar 
 came back with me to breakfast 
 this morning after the early service. 
 After some talk about the accident, 
 I asked him if he intended to touch 
 upon it on Sunday morning. He 
 said that he would if I thought it 
 necessary, but that his sermon was 
 already written, being one of a 
 series on the Gospels for the day, 
 which he prepared some time ago. 
 I said that undoubtedly the acci- 
 dent was a terrible event, and one 
 which had sunk very deeply into 
 the minds of everybody in Ilworthy. 
 It was an event which might give 
 point and weight to many a lesson, 
 and it had been my view that 
 Christianity was a practical religion, 
 and the priest should, wherever 
 75 E 2 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 possible, bring it to bear upon the 
 events of the day. At the same time 
 I did not insist ; it was not for me 
 to instruct him, the contrary was 
 rather the case. He smiled good- 
 temperedly, and said that since I 
 seemed to be so full of the accident, 
 and had taken such an absorbing 
 interest in it, I could probably 
 preach a better sermon on it myself, 
 and I might use that as my subject 
 for Sunday evening. I thanked 
 him, and said that I would do so. 
 I have spent the whole day over 
 this sermon. I do not, like the 
 Vicar, I'ead my sermons, but I have 
 written this out in full, and shall 
 commit it to memory. I have given 
 what I think is really a somewhat 
 vivid and impressive picture of the 
 great express rushing at headlong 
 speed to ruin ; the obstacle just 
 seen by the driver one moment 
 before his engine crashed into it ; 
 the sudden darkness of the train 
 through the extinction of the 
 lights ; the screams for help ; the 
 76 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 sight of the dead bodies laid out on 
 the embankment. ... I have 
 worked myself up so much about 
 this sei-mouj that I have only to 
 shut my eyes actually to witness the 
 scene myself. I seem to be stand- 
 ing by the obstruction, and to see 
 the long train crashing down upon 
 me when it is too late to do any- 
 thing. I hope I am not exciting 
 myself too much about it. It is 
 already past ten, and I think I 
 shall have a cup of hot cocoa 
 quietly and go to bed. I notice 
 that one of the illustrated papers 
 in the reading-room has a magnifi- 
 cent full-page illustration of the 
 accident. I have often thought, 
 by the way, of writing a little for 
 the papers myself I know I 
 have some taste for the work, 
 and I am inclined to think I have 
 some little gift also. The supple- 
 ment to one's income would be 
 useful. 
 
 Sunday, October 9- — I have just 
 returned from church, exhausted. 
 77 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 I preached over forty minutes, 
 without the least sign of impatience 
 from any of the congregation. No 
 coughing or shuffling of the feet, or 
 anything of the kind. In the vestiy 
 afterwards, Mr. Johnson, our senior 
 churchwarden, took me aside, and 
 tokl me that it was one of the 
 strongest and most impressive ad- 
 dresses he had ever heard delivered 
 from that pulpit. I hope I did not 
 appear to be unduly pleased at this ; 
 one must not think of self in these 
 mjatters, and I strive against it. I 
 was a little surprised that after this 
 special effort of mine the Vicar 
 should have said nothing at all. 
 He is not a small-minded man, and 
 I cannot believe him to be actuated 
 by jealousy. He spoke of the acci- 
 dent again, and said in what seemed 
 to be I'ather a patronizing way that 
 he was afraid I was letting it prey 
 too much on my mind. I tried to 
 be humble, and I think I can submit 
 to a rebuke when it is deserved. 
 But, really, this is nonsense. I 
 78 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 still picture to myself at times the 
 man standing by the obstruction 
 and watching the express coming 
 towards him. But for the awful 
 wickedness of it, it would be, in a 
 way, a magnificent moment. He 
 would have the thought that he, a 
 weak man, could at his will check 
 the rush of a train, hurl it over, 
 twist and break the strong iron as 
 if it were cardboard, and avenge 
 himself on hundreds of people ; 
 and then have all the police in the 
 country hunting for him — and in 
 vain. Exhausted though I am, I 
 am afraid that I shall get no sleep 
 to-night until I have been out in 
 the fresh air a little. The church 
 was crowded, and oppressively hot. 
 The whole village is asleep, and no 
 one will be any the wiser. I think 
 I will get on my bicycle and ride 
 down again to the place where the 
 accident happened. It is within a 
 quarter of an hour to midnight, 
 and so Sunday is practically over. 
 Besides, there are many very good 
 79 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 men who do not consider that 
 cycling on Sunday is wrong. 
 
 Monday, October 10. — To-day I 
 have been beset by a terrible and 
 most extraordinary temptation. I 
 thank God that I have wrestled 
 against it successfully ; but the fact 
 that such a temptation could even 
 occur to me appals me. 
 
 Tuesday, October 11. — The Vicar 
 called this morning. He Avill take 
 both sermons next Sunday. He 
 said that I looked ill, and that he 
 thought I had been overdoing it, 
 and was in want of a holiday. I 
 think he is right. He is really a 
 very kind man. I shall go away 
 next week. Again, all day long, I 
 have been subject to the same 
 diabolical impulse. I was half 
 tempted to speak to the Vicar 
 about it, but shame prevented me. 
 I get but little sleep now at nights, 
 and if I do sleep I am always 
 haunted by the same dream. I see 
 the lights of the express coming 
 nearer and nearer. . . . 
 80 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 Wednesday, October 12. — It is done 
 now. It had to be done, and it 
 was no good to contend against it. 
 I believe that it must have been the 
 will of God that I should do it, for 
 ever since the burden has been 
 lifted from my mind, and I have 
 been quite myself again. Late 
 last night, or rather very early this 
 morning, finding myself unable to 
 sleep, I got up and went out. I did 
 not take my bicycle. I ran all the 
 way to that point on the line that I 
 have always been thinking about. 
 There is a stack of heavy sleepers 
 there. It is at the bottom of a 
 deep cutting, and you can see the 
 train coming for some distance. I 
 knew by the tables that I had not 
 much time to spare. I had got six 
 of the heavy sleepers across the rails, 
 when I thought I heard it coming, 
 but I was mistaken. I dragged 
 on another, and then I heard the 
 roar ; thei'e was no mistake about 
 it. I could see the lights flashing 
 as I saw them in my dream. I 
 81 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 am ashamed that I had not the 
 strength of mind to wait until the 
 last moment. I tried to, but I 
 could not. I ran away up the em- 
 bankment and crossed some fields. 
 I saw some men coming and hid 
 behind a hedge. I knew that de- 
 tectives were about. I lay there 
 panting, and was afraid they would 
 hear me, but they passed on. I got 
 back to my lodgings while it was 
 still dark ; nobody had heard me 
 go out, and nobody heard me come 
 back. That is all right. 
 
 Since writing the above I have 
 been to the Wednesday evening 
 service. The Vicar was to deliver 
 an address. At the last moment I 
 felt that I wished to preach on this 
 awful accident and the lessons it 
 must have for every one of us. I 
 crossed over to the ^ icar and asked 
 permission to preach. He refused. 
 I warned him that I intended to 
 preach, and that if he attempted 
 to occupy the pulpit he would do 
 so at his peril. Then I suddenly 
 82 
 
THE MAGNET 
 
 seemed to see the matter in a 
 different light and apologized to 
 him. However, I wish very much 
 to address the village on the sub- 
 ject, and as I am not allowed to 
 preach in church I shall call a 
 public meeting on the recreation- 
 ground. I must remember to get 
 arrangements made as to the print- 
 ing and posting of bills to-morrow. 
 
 S3 
 
THE CASE OF VINCENT 
 PYRWHIT 
 
 The death of Vincent Pyrwhit, J. P., 
 of EUerdon House, Ellei-don, in 
 the county of Buckingham, would 
 in the ordinary way have received 
 no more attention than the death 
 of any other simple country gentle- 
 man. The circumstances of his 
 death, however, though now long 
 since forgotten, were sensational, 
 and attracted some notice at the 
 time. It was one of those cases 
 which is easily forgotten within a 
 year, except just in the locality 
 where it occurred. The most sen- 
 sational circumstances of the case 
 never came before the public at all. 
 I give them here sinaply and plainly. 
 The psychical people may make 
 what they like of them. 
 
 Pyrwhit himself was a very ordi- 
 84 
 
CASE OF VINCENT PYRWHIT 
 
 naiy country gentleman, a good 
 fellow, but in no way brilliant. 
 He was devoted to his wife, who 
 was some fifteen years younger 
 than himself, and remarkably 
 beautiful. She was quite a good 
 woman, but she had her faults. 
 She was fond of admiration, and 
 she was an abominable flirt. She 
 misled men very cleverly, and was 
 then sincerely angry with them for 
 having been misled. Her husband 
 never troubled his head about these 
 flirtations, being assured quite rightly 
 that she was a good woman. He was 
 not jealous; she, on the other hand, 
 was possessed of a jealousy amount- 
 ing almost to insanity. This might 
 have Caused trouble if he had ever 
 provided her with the slightest 
 basis on which her jealousy could 
 work, but he never did. With the 
 exception of his wife, women bored 
 him. I believe she did once or 
 twice try to make a scene for some 
 preposterous reason which was no 
 reason at all ; but nothing serious 
 85 
 
CASE OF VINCENT PYRWHIT 
 
 came of it^ and there was never a 
 real quarrel between them. 
 
 On the death of his wife^ after a 
 prolonged illness, Pyrwhit wrote and 
 asked me to come down to Ellerdon 
 for the funeral, and to remain at 
 least a few days with him. He 
 would be quite alone, and I was his 
 oldest friend. I hate attending 
 funerals, but I ivas his oldest friend, 
 and I was, moreover, a distant rela- 
 tion of his wife. I had no choice 
 and I went down. 
 
 There were many visitors in the 
 house for the funeral, which took 
 place in the village churchyard, 
 but they left immediately after- 
 wards. The air of heavy gloom 
 which had hung over the house 
 seemed to lift a little. The servants 
 (servants are always very emotional) 
 continued to break dawn at inter- 
 vals, noticeably Pyrwhit's man, 
 Williams, but Pyrwhit himself Avas 
 self-possessed. He spoke of his 
 wife with great affection and 
 regret, but still he could speak of 
 
CASE OF VINCENT PYRWHIT 
 
 her and not unsteadily. At dinner 
 he also spoke of one or two other 
 subjects^ of politics and of his duties 
 as a magistrate, and of course he 
 made the requisite fuss about his 
 gratitude to nie for coming down to 
 Ellerdon at that time. After dinner 
 we sat in the library, a room well 
 and expensively furnished, but with- 
 out the least attempt at taste. There 
 were a few oil paintings on the walls, 
 apresentationportraitof himself, and 
 a landscape or two — all more or less 
 bad, as far as I remember. He had 
 eaten next to nothing at dinner, but 
 he had drunk a good deal ; the wine, 
 however, did not seem to have the 
 least effect upon him. I had got 
 the conversation definitely off the 
 subject of his wife when 1 made a 
 blunder. I noticed an Erichsen's 
 extension standing on his writinff- 
 table. I said : 
 
 ' I didn't know that telephones 
 had penetrated into the villages 
 yet.' 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, 'I believe they are 
 87 
 
CASE OF VINCENT PYRWHIT 
 
 common enough now. I had that 
 one fitted up during my wife's ill- 
 ness to communicate with her bed- 
 room on the floor above us on the 
 other side of the house.' 
 
 At that moment the bell of the 
 telephone rang sharply. 
 
 We both looked at each other. 
 I said with the stupid affectation of 
 calmness one always puts on when 
 one is a little bit frightened : 
 
 ' Probably a servant in that room 
 wishes to speak to you.' 
 
 He got up^ walked over to the 
 machine, and swung the green cord 
 towards me. The end of it was 
 loose. 
 
 ' I had it disconnected this morn- 
 ing/ he said ; ' also the door of that 
 room is locked, and no one can pos- 
 sibly be in it.' 
 
 He had turned the colour of gray 
 blotting-paper ; so probably had I. 
 
 The bell rang again — a prolonged, 
 rattling ring. 
 
 ' Are you going to answer it .''' I 
 said. 
 
 88 
 
CASE OF VINCENT PYRWHIT 
 
 ' I am not/ he answered firmly. 
 
 ' Then/ I said, ' I shall answer it 
 myself. It is some stupid trick, a 
 joke not in the best of taste, for 
 which you will probably have to 
 sack one or other of your domestics.' 
 
 ' My servants,' he answered, 
 'would not have done that. Be- 
 sides, don't you see it is impos- 
 sible ? The instrument is discon- 
 nected.' 
 
 ' The bell rang all the same. I 
 shall tiy it.' 
 
 I picked up the receiver. 
 
 ' Are you there }' I called. 
 
 The voice which answered me 
 was unmistakably the rather high 
 staccato voice of Mrs. Pyrwhit. 
 
 ' I want you,' it said, ' to tell my 
 husband that he will be with me 
 to-morrow.' 
 
 I still listened. Nothing more 
 was said. 
 
 I repeated, ' Are you there }' and 
 still there was no answer. 
 
 I turned to Pyrwhit. 
 
 * There is no one there,' I said. 
 89 
 
CASE OF VINCENT PYRWHIT 
 
 ' Possibly there is thunder in the 
 air affecting the bell in some mys- 
 terious way. There must be some 
 simple explanation, and Til find it 
 all out to-morrow.' 
 
 He went to bed early that night- 
 All the following day I was with 
 him. We rode together, and I ex- 
 pected an accident every minute, 
 but none happened. All the even- 
 ing I expected him to turn suddenly 
 faint and ill, but that also did not 
 happen. When at about ten o'clock 
 he excused himself and said good- 
 night I felt distinctly relieved. He 
 went up to his room and rang for 
 Williams. 
 
 The rest is, of course, well known. 
 The servant's reason had broken 
 down, possibly the immediate cause 
 being the death of Mrs. Pyrwhit. 
 On entering his master's room, with- 
 out the least hesitation, he raised a 
 loaded revolver which he carried in 
 90 
 
CASE OF VINCENT PYRWHIT 
 
 his hand, and shot Pyrwhit through 
 the heart. I behave the case is 
 mentioned in some of the text- 
 books on homicidal mania. 
 
 91 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF 
 
 Three hundred and sixty-tv/o years 
 before Christ a chasm opened in the 
 Roman Forum^ and the soothsayers 
 declared that it would never close 
 until the most precious treasui-e of 
 Rome had been thrown into it. It 
 is said that a youth named Mettus 
 (or Mettius) Curtius appeared on 
 horseback in full ai-mour, and before 
 a very fair audience, exclaiming that 
 Rome had no dearer possession than 
 arms and courage, leaped down into 
 the gulf, which thereupon closed 
 over him. This incident, like most 
 of the legendary history of Rome, 
 has been subjected to severe criti- 
 cism. Those who too hastily dis- 
 believe in it will reconsider their 
 opinion on reading the account, not 
 previously published, of what took 
 place at the bottom of the gulf 
 92 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF 
 
 Curtius and the horse fell in the 
 order in which they had started, 
 with the horse underneath. After 
 a few minutes' rapid passage the 
 horse stopped falling somewhat 
 suddenly, broke most of itself, and 
 died. Curtius, who, though a little 
 shaken, was uninjured, sat up on 
 his dead horse and looked round to 
 see if he could discover the nearest 
 way back. As he looked upward 
 he saw the top edges of the cavern 
 close together, and the daylight 
 shut out. But a curious greenish 
 light still lingered in the cavern in 
 which he found himself, and from 
 one of its recesses came a voice 
 which startled Mettus considerably. 
 It said interrogatively : 
 
 ' Did you hurt yourself ?' 
 
 ' Not much,' replied Curtius. ' I 
 didn't know there was anybody 
 down here. You quite startled 
 me. Do come out and let me see 
 you.' 
 
 ' No, thanks,' said the voice. 
 Did you really believe that you 
 93 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF 
 
 would die when you jumped down 
 the gulf ?' 
 
 ' Cei'tainly I did.' 
 
 The voice laughed, a mean little 
 snigger. 
 
 ' So you will, too. You'll die of 
 suffocation, slowly, when the air in 
 this cavern is exhausted.' 
 
 ' Then we'd better get to work at 
 once,' said Curtius. ' I have an 
 excellent sword here and a couple 
 of daggers. I put them on for the 
 occasion. I didn't fall so far as I 
 expected, and if we both of us work 
 hard we shall be able to cut our way 
 out.' 
 
 ' Thanks,' said the voice, ' but 
 I'm not going to do any work. Fm 
 not of the same kind as yourself. 
 I don't need the air of the outer 
 world. In fact, 1 don't think much 
 of the outer world, even its best 
 specimens. That's why I live down 
 here. You've got to die. Sorry, 
 but there's no help for it. Fve set 
 my trap, and I caught you, and if 
 you're the best specimen they can 
 94 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF 
 
 provide on top^ my low opinion of 
 them is confirmed.' 
 
 ' What do you mean by the 
 "trap" ?' asked Curtius. 
 
 ' Well, it was I who caused the 
 chasm to open, knowing the kind 
 of tomfool thing your soothsayers 
 would remark about it. I sat here 
 wondering what I should get. 
 Shouldn't have been surprised at a 
 brace of vestal virgins. They would 
 have exclaimed, " Purity and devo- 
 tion," instead of " Courage and 
 arms," amid loud applause, of course. 
 Or it might have been an elderly 
 matron, with a good old tag that 
 Rome held nothing more precious 
 than the tender love of her mothers. 
 It might have been a soothsayer, it 
 might have been anything. As it 
 is, it's you, and I think very little 
 of you. Arms ? Of what use do 
 you think all those tin-pot arrange- 
 ments which you have hung about 
 you are likely to be ? Courage ? 
 W^hy, man alive ! you've got no 
 courage at all.' 
 
 95 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF 
 
 ' I have/ said Curtius stolidly ; ' I 
 fully expected to die, and I was 
 willing to die.' 
 
 'Just for one moment/ said the 
 voicCj 'when you had got all that 
 mob of howling fools around 
 applauding you. Applause is an 
 intoxicant, and you got drunk on 
 it. Now you are sober again, and 
 you don't want to die at all. The 
 man who can die alone, slowly and 
 terribly, is courageous. But you've 
 got no more courage in you than a 
 piece of chewed string. You're as 
 white as chalk.' 
 
 ' That's the effect of the green 
 light,' interposed Curtius. 
 
 ' Rubbish !' replied the voice, 
 'green light doesn't make a man 
 shake all over, does it .'"' 
 
 'That's just the shock from the 
 fall,' said Curtius. ' But I can't 
 stop here arguing with you ; I'm 
 off to explore the cavern. There 
 must be a way out somewhere.' 
 
 'There isn't,' said the voice ; ' but 
 you can explore.' 
 9Q 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF 
 
 ' I can't die like a rat in a trap,' 
 said Curtius, whimpering. 
 
 And off he went on his explora- 
 tion. He looked in at the recess 
 from which the voice had proceeded 
 and found nothing. The cave was 
 enormous. For many hours he 
 tramped on and on, and never 
 through one tiny chink in the roof 
 did he see the light of day. Ex- 
 hausted and ravenous, at last he 
 flung himself down on the floor of 
 the cave, and almost immediately 
 the voice, which had been silent all 
 this time, began again. First of 
 all came that faint, mean little 
 snigger ; then it said : 
 
 * Hungry }' 
 
 ' Worn out with hunger,' sobbed 
 Curtius ; ' I'm thirsty, too. My 
 mouth is so parched that I can 
 hardly speak, and there doesn't 
 seem to be one drop of moisture in 
 this daiTined cavern.' 
 
 ' There isn't,' said the voice, ' nor 
 one crumb of food either, with the 
 exception of your horse, and I don't 
 97 F 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF 
 
 think you will be able to find that 
 again. You can try back if you 
 like. Now I come to think of it, 
 you won't die of suffocation, but of 
 starvation. Cuts my entertainment 
 rather shorter than I had hoped, but 
 I must put up with that.' 
 
 ' I can't die like this,' sobbed 
 Curtius. 
 
 ' Courage and arms,' replied the 
 voice, 'are the things which Rome 
 holds most precious. Go on, my 
 boy ; you'll last some time yet.' 
 
 Then Curtius drew his sword, and 
 went to look for the proprietor of 
 the voice in order to slay him. But 
 he didn't find him. He resumed 
 his explorations. 
 
 In a few hours he was too weak 
 to walk any further. He fell into a 
 kind of doze, and when he woke 
 again his arms had been taken from 
 him. 
 
 ' Where is my sword T he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 ' I've got it,' replied the voice, 
 this time from the roof of the 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF 
 
 cavern ; ' what do you want it 
 for ?' 
 
 ' Want to kill myself/ said Cur- 
 tius. 
 
 ' If I give you your sword, will 
 you own that you were merely a 
 drunken theatrical impostor ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' And that you are a coward, and 
 are dying the death of a coward ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 The swoi'd clattered down from 
 the roof on to the floor of the cavern 
 at the feet of the hero. 
 
 He picked it up and set his teeth. 
 
 99 f2 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 It was a little village in the extreme 
 north of Yorkshire, three miles 
 from a railway-station on a small 
 branch line. It was not a progres- 
 sive village ; it just kept still and 
 respected itself The hills lay all 
 round it, and seemed to shut it out 
 from the rest of the world. Yet 
 folks were born, and lived, and 
 died, much as in the more important 
 centres ; and there were intervals 
 which required to be filled with 
 amusement. Entertainments were 
 given by amateurs from time to 
 time in the schoolroom ; sometimes 
 hand-bell ringers or a conjurer 
 would visit the place, but their re- 
 ception was not always encouraging. 
 ' Conjurers is nowt, an' ringers is 
 nowt,' said the sad native judi- 
 ciously; ' ar domt regard 'em.' 
 100 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 But the native brightened up when 
 in the summer months a few cara- 
 vans found their way to a piece of 
 waste land adjoining the church- 
 yard. They formed the village 
 fair, and for two days they were a 
 popular resort. But it was under- 
 stood that the fair had not the 
 glories of old days ; it had dwindled. 
 Most things in connection with this 
 village dwindled. 
 
 The first day of the fair was draw- 
 ing to a close. It was half-past ten 
 at night, and at eleven the fair would 
 close until the following morning. 
 This last half-hour was fruitful in 
 business. The steam roundabout 
 was crowded, the proprietor of the 
 peep-show was taking pennies very 
 fast, although not so fast as the 
 proprietor of another, somewhat 
 repulsive, show. A fair number 
 patronized a canvas booth which 
 bore the following inscription : 
 
 POPULAR SCIENCE LECTURES. 
 
 Admission Free. 
 101 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 At one end of this tent was a 
 table covered with red baize ; on 
 it were bottles and boxes^ a human 
 skull, a retort, a large book, and some 
 bundles of dried herbs. Behind it 
 was the lecturer, an old man, gray 
 and thin, wearing a bright-coloured 
 dressing-gown. He lectured volubly 
 and enthusiastically; his energy and 
 the atmosphere of the tent made 
 him very hot, and occasionally he 
 mopped his forehead. 
 
 ' I am about to exhibit to you,' he 
 said, speaking clearly and correctlj;", 
 ' a secret known to few, and believed 
 to have come originally from those 
 wise men of the East referred to in 
 Holy Writ.' Here he filled two 
 test-tubes with water, and placed 
 some bluish-green crystals in one 
 and some yellow crystals in the 
 other. He went on talking, quoting 
 scraps of Latin, telling stories, 
 making local and personal allusions, 
 finally coming back again to his two 
 test-tubes, both of which now con- 
 tained almost colourless solutions. 
 102 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 He poured them both together into 
 a flat glass vessel, and the mixture 
 at once turned to a deep brownish 
 purple. He threw a fragment of 
 something on to the surface of the 
 mixture, and that fragment at once 
 caught fire. This favourite trick 
 succeeded ; the audience were un- 
 doubtedly impressed, and before 
 they quite realized by what logical 
 connection the old man had arrived 
 at the subject, he was talking to 
 them about the abdomen. He 
 seemed to know the most unspeak- 
 able and intimate things about the 
 abdomen. He had made pills which 
 suited its peculiar needs, which he 
 could and would sell in boxes at 
 sixpence and one shilling, according 
 to size. He sold four boxes at once, 
 and was back in his classical and 
 anecdotal stage, when a woman 
 pressed forward. She was a very 
 poor woman. Could she have a 
 box of these pills at half-price .'' 
 Her son was bad, very bad. It 
 would be a kindness. 
 103 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 He interrupted her in a dry, dis- 
 tinct voice : 
 
 ' Woman, I never yet did anyone 
 a kindness, not even myself.' 
 
 Howevei", a friend pushed some 
 money into her hand, and she 
 bought two boxes. 
 
 * * * -X- -Si- 
 
 lt was past twelve o'clock now. 
 The flaring lights were out in the 
 little group of caravans on the 
 waste ground. The tired pro- 
 prietors of the shows were asleep. 
 The gravestones in. the churchyard 
 were glimmering white in the bright 
 moonlight. But at the entrance to 
 that little canvas booth the quack 
 doctor sat on one of his boxes, 
 smoking a clay pipe. He had 
 taken off the dressing-gown, and 
 was in his shirt-sleeves ; his clothes 
 were black, much worn. His atten- 
 tion was arrested — he thought that 
 he heard the sound of sobbing. 
 
 ' It's a God-forsaken world,' he 
 said aloud. After a second's silence 
 he spoke again. ' No, I never did 
 104 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 a kindness even to myself, though 
 I thought I didj or I shouldn't have 
 come to this.' 
 
 He took his pipe from his mouth 
 and spat. Once more he heard 
 that strange wailing sound ; this 
 time he arose, and walked in the 
 direction of it. 
 
 Yes, that was it. It came from 
 that caravan standing alone where 
 the trees made a dark spot. The 
 caravan was gaudily painted, and 
 there were steps from the door to 
 the ground. He remembered having 
 noticed it once during the day. It 
 was evident that someone inside 
 was in trouble — great trouble. The 
 old man knocked gently at the 
 door. 
 
 ' Who's there ? What's the 
 matter ?' 
 
 ' Nothing/ said a broken voice 
 from within. 
 
 ' Are you a woman ?' 
 
 There was a fearful laugh. 
 
 ' Neither man nor woman — a 
 show.' 
 
 105 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 ' What do you mean ?' 
 
 ' Go round to the side^ and you'll 
 see.' 
 
 The old man went round, and by 
 the light of two wax matches caught 
 a glimpse of part of the rough 
 painting on the side of the caravan. 
 The inatches dropped from his hand. 
 He came back, and sat down on the 
 steps of the caravan. 
 
 ' You are not like that/ he said. 
 
 ' No, worse. I'm not dressed in 
 pi'etty clothes, and lying on a crim- 
 son velvet couch. I'm half naked, 
 in a corner of this cursed box, and 
 .crying because my owner beat me. 
 Now go, or I'll open the door and 
 show m3^self to you as I am now. 
 It would frighten you ; it would 
 haunt your sleep.' 
 
 ' Nothing frightens me. I was a 
 fool once, but I have never been 
 frightened. What right has this 
 owner over you T 
 
 ' He is my father,' the voice 
 screamed loudly ; then there was 
 more weeping ; then it spoke again : 
 106 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 ' It's awful ; I could bear anything 
 now — anything — if I thought it 
 would ever be any better ; but it 
 won't. My mind's a woman's and 
 my w^ants are a woman's, but I 
 ain not a woman. I am a show. 
 The brutes stand round me, talk to 
 me, touch me !' 
 
 'There's a way out/ said the old 
 man quietly, after a pause. 
 
 An idea had occurred to him. 
 
 ' I know — and I daren't take it — 
 I've got a thing here, but I daren't 
 use it.' 
 
 ' You could drink something — 
 something that wouldn't hurt ?' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' You are quite alone }' 
 
 ' Yes ; my owner is in the village, 
 at the inn.' 
 
 ' Then wait a minute.' 
 
 The old man hastened back to 
 the canvas booth, and fumbled 
 about with his chemicals. He mur- 
 mured something about doing some- 
 one a kindness at last. Then he 
 returned to the caravan with a 
 107 
 
THE END OF A SHOW 
 
 glass of colourless liquid in his 
 hand. 
 
 ' Open the door and take it/ he 
 said. 
 
 The door was opened a very little 
 way. A thin hand was thrust out 
 and took the glass eagerly. The 
 door closed, and the voice spoke 
 again. 
 
 ' It will be easy .''' 
 
 ^Yes.' 
 
 ' Good - bye, then. To your 
 health ' 
 
 The old man heard the glass 
 crash on the wooden floor, then he 
 .went back to his seat in front of 
 the booth, and carefully lit another 
 pipe. 
 
 ' I will not go," he said aloud. ' I 
 fear nothing — not even the results 
 of my best action.' 
 
 He listened attentively. 
 
 No sound whatever came from 
 the caravan. All was still. Far 
 away the sky was growing lighter 
 with the dawn of a fine summer 
 day. 
 
 108 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 I 
 
 Up and down the oak-panelled 
 dining-hall of Mansteth the master 
 of the house walked restlessly. At 
 formal intervals down the long 
 severe table were placed four silver 
 candlesticks, but the light from 
 these did not serve to illuminate 
 the whole of the surroundings. 
 It just touched the portrait of a 
 fair-haired boy Avith a sad and 
 wistful expression that hung at one 
 end of the room ; it sparkled on 
 the lid of a silver tankard. As Sir 
 Edric passed to and fro it lit up his 
 face and figure. It was a bold and 
 resolute face with a firm chin and 
 passionate, dominant eyes. A bad 
 past was written in the lines of it. 
 And yet every now and then there 
 109 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 came over it a strange look of very 
 anxious gentleness that gave it some 
 resemblance to the portrait of the 
 fair-haired boy. Sir Edric paused 
 a moment before the portrait and 
 surveyed it carefully^ his strong 
 brown hands locked behind him, 
 his gigantic shoulders thrust a 
 little forward. 
 
 ' Ah^ what I was !' he murmured 
 to himself — ' what I was !' 
 
 Once more he commenced pac- 
 ing up and down. The candles^ 
 mirrored in the polished wood of 
 the table, had burnt low. For 
 hours Sir Edric had been waiting, 
 listening intently for some sound 
 from the room above or from the 
 broad staircase outside. There had 
 been sounds — the wailing of a 
 woman, a quick abrupt voice, the 
 moving of rapid feet. But for the 
 last hour he had heard nothing. 
 Quite suddenly he stopped and 
 dropped on his knees against the 
 table : 
 
 ' God, I have never thought of 
 
 no 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 Thee. Thou knowest that — Thou 
 knowest that by my devihsh be- 
 haviour and cruelty I did veritably 
 murder Alice, my first wife, albeit 
 the physicians did maintain that 
 she died of a decline — a wasting 
 sickness. Thou knowest that all 
 here in Mansteth do hate me, and 
 that rightly. They say, too, that I 
 am mad ; but that they say not 
 rightly, seeing that I know how 
 wicked I am. I always knew it, 
 but I never cared until I loved — oh, 
 God, I never cared !' 
 
 His fierce eyes opened for a 
 minute, glared round the room, 
 and closed again tightly. He went 
 on : 
 
 ' God, for myself I ask nothing ; 
 I make no bargaining with Thee. 
 Whatsoever punishment Thou givest 
 me to bear I will bear it ; whatso- 
 ever Thou givest me to do I will 
 do it. Whether Thou killest Eve 
 or Avhether Thou keepest her in 
 life — and never have I loved but 
 her — I will from this night be good. 
 Ill 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 In due penitence will I receive the 
 holy Sacrament of Thy Body and 
 Blood. And my son, the one child 
 that I had by Alice, I will fetch back 
 again from Challonsea, where I kept 
 him in order that I might not look 
 upon him, and I will be to him a 
 father in deed and very truth. And 
 in all things, so far as in me lieth, 
 I will make restitution and atone- 
 ment. Whether Thou hearest me 
 or whether Thou hearest me not, 
 these things shall be. And for my 
 prayer, it is but this : of Thy loving 
 kindness, most merciful God, be 
 Thou with Eve and make her 
 happy ; and after these great pains 
 and perils of childbirth send her 
 Thy peace. Of Thy loving-kind- 
 ness. Thy merciful loving-kindness, 
 O God !' 
 
 Perhaps the prayer that is offered 
 when the time for praying is over is 
 more terribly pathetic than any 
 other. Yet one might hesitate to 
 say that this prayer was unanswered. 
 
 Sir Edric rose to his feet. Once 
 112 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 more he paced the room. There 
 was a strange simplicity about him, 
 the simphcity that scorns an incon- 
 gruity. He felt that his lips and 
 throat were parched and dry. He 
 lifted the heavy silver tankard fi'oni 
 the table and raised the lid ; there 
 was still a good draught of mulled 
 wine in it with the burnt toast, cut 
 heart-shape, floating on the top. 
 
 ' To the health of Eve and her 
 child,' he said aloud, and drained it 
 to the last drop. 
 
 Click, click ! As he put the 
 tankard down he heard distinctly 
 two doors opened and shut quickly, 
 one after the other. And then 
 slowly down the stairs came a hesi- 
 tating step. Sir Edric could bear 
 the suspense no longer. He opened 
 the dining-room door, and the dim 
 light strayed out into the dark hall 
 beyond. 
 
 ' Dennison,' he said, in a low, 
 sharp whisper, is that you ?' 
 
 * Yes, yes. I am coming. Sir 
 Edric' 
 
 113 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 A moment afterwards Dr. Denni- 
 son entered the room. He was 
 very pale ; perspiration streamed 
 from his forehead ; his cravat was 
 disai'ranged. He was an old man, 
 thin, with the air of proud humility. 
 Sir Edric watched him narrowly. 
 
 ' Then she is dead/ he said, with 
 a quiet that Dr. Dennison had not 
 expected. 
 
 ' Twenty physicians — a hundred 
 physicians could not have saved her. 
 
 Sir Edric. She was ' He gave 
 
 some details of medical interest. 
 
 ' Dennison/ said Sir Edric, still 
 speaking with calm and restraint, 
 ' why do you seem thus indisposed 
 and panic-stricken ? You are a 
 physician ; have you never looked 
 upon the face of death before .'' 
 The soul of my wife is with 
 God ' 
 
 ' Yes/ murmured Dennison, ' a 
 good woman, a perfect, saintly 
 woman.' 
 
 ' And,' Sir Edric went on, raising 
 his eyes to the ceiling as though he 
 114 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 could see through it, ' her body lies 
 in great dignity and beauty upon 
 the bed, and there is no horror in 
 it. Why are you afraid ?' 
 
 ' I do not fear death. Sir Edrie.' 
 
 ' But your hands — they are not 
 steady. You are evidently over- 
 come. Does the child live }' 
 
 ' Yes, it lives.' 
 
 ' Another boy — a brother for 
 young Edric, the child that Alice 
 bore me ?' 
 
 ' There — there is something 
 wrong. I do not know what to 
 do. I want you to come upstairs. 
 And, Sir Edric, I must tell you, 
 you will need your self-command.' 
 
 ' Dennison, the hand of God is 
 heavy upon me ; but from this time 
 forth until the day of my death I 
 am submissive to it, and God send 
 that that day may come quickly ! 
 I will follow you and I will en- 
 dure.' 
 
 He took one of the high silver 
 candlesticks from the table and 
 stepped towards the door. He 
 115 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 strode quickly up the staircase. Dr. 
 Dennison following a little way 
 behind him. 
 
 As Sir Edric waited at the top of 
 the staircase he heard suddenly 
 from the room before him a low 
 cry. He put down the candlestick 
 on the floor and leaned back against 
 the wall listening. The cry came 
 again, a vibrating monotone ending 
 in a growl. 
 
 ' Dennison, Dennison !' 
 
 His voice choked ; he could not 
 go on. 
 
 ' Yes,' said the doctor, ' it is in 
 there. I had the two women out 
 of the room, and got it here. No 
 one but myself has seen it. But 
 you must see it, too.' 
 
 He raised the candle and the 
 two men entered the room — one of 
 the spare bedrooms. On the bed 
 there was something moving under 
 cover of a blanket. Dr. Dennison 
 paused for a moment and then flung 
 the blanket partially back. 
 
 They did not remain in the room 
 116 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 for more than a few seconds. The 
 moment they got outside, Dr. 
 Dennison began to speak. 
 
 ' Sir Edric, I would fain suggest 
 somewhat to you. There is no 
 evilj as Sophocles hath it in his 
 "Antigone," for which man hath 
 not found a remedy, except it be 
 death, and here ' 
 
 Sir Edric interrupted him in a 
 husky voice. 
 
 ' Downstairs, Dennison. This is 
 too near.' 
 
 It was, indeed, passing strange. 
 When once the novelty of this 
 — this occurrence had worn off. 
 Dr. Dennison seemed no longer 
 frightened. He was calm, aca- 
 demic, interested in an unusual 
 phenomenon. But Sir Edric, who 
 was said in the village to fear 
 nothing in earth, or heaven, or 
 hell, was obviously much moved. 
 
 When they had got back to the 
 dining-room. Sir Edric motioned 
 the doctor to a seat. 
 
 * Now, then,' he said, ' I will hear 
 117 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 you. Something must be done — 
 and to-night.' 
 
 ' Exceptional cases/ said Dr. 
 Dennison, ' demand exceptional 
 remedies. Well, it lies there up- 
 stairs and is at our mercy. We 
 can let it live, or, placing one hand 
 over the mouth and nostrils, we 
 can ' 
 
 ' Stop,' said Sir Edric. ' This 
 thing has so crushed and humi- 
 liated me that I can scarcely 
 think. But I recall that while I 
 waited for you I fell upon my knees 
 and prayed that God would save 
 Eve. And, as I confessed unto 
 Him more than I will ever confess 
 unto man, it seemed to me that it 
 were ignoble to offer a price for 
 His favour. And I said that what- 
 soever punishment I had to bear, I 
 would bear it ; and whatsoever He 
 called upon me to do, I would do 
 it ; and I made no conditions.' 
 
 ' Well r 
 
 ' Now my punishment is of two 
 kinds. Firstly, my wife. Eve, is 
 118 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 dead. And this I bear more easily 
 because I know that now she is 
 numbered with the company of 
 God's saints, and with them her 
 pure spirit finds happier communion 
 than with me ; I was not worthy of 
 her. And yet she would call my 
 roughness by gentle, pretty names. 
 She gloried, Dennison, in the mere 
 strength of my body, and in the 
 greatness of my stature. And I am 
 thankful that she never saw this — 
 this shame that has come upon the 
 house. For she was a proud woman, 
 with all her gentleness, even as I 
 was proud and bad until it pleased 
 God this night to break me even to 
 the dust. And for my second punish- 
 ment, that, too, I must bear. This 
 thing that lies upstairs, I will take 
 and rear ; it is bone of my bone 
 and flesh of my flesh ; only, if it be 
 possible, I will hide my shame so 
 that no man but you shall know 
 of it.' 
 
 ' This is not possible. You cannot 
 keep a living being in this house 
 119 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 unless it be known. Will not these 
 women say, "Where is the child?" ' 
 
 SirEdric stood upright, his power- 
 ful hands linked before him, his face 
 working in agony ; but he was still 
 resolute. 
 
 'Then if it must be known, it 
 shall be known. The fault is mine. 
 If I had but done sooner what Eve 
 asked, this would not have hap- 
 pened. I will bear it.' 
 
 ' Sir Edric, do not be angry with 
 me, for if I did not say this, then 
 I should be but an ill counsellor. 
 And, firstly, do not use the word 
 shame. The ways of nature are 
 past all explaining ; if a woman 
 be frail and easily impressed, and 
 other circumstances concur, then in 
 some few rare cases a thing of this 
 sort does happen. If there be 
 shame, it is not upon you but upon 
 nature — to whom one would not 
 lightly impute shame. Yet it is 
 true that common and uninformed 
 people might think that this shame 
 was yours. And herein lies the 
 120 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 great trouble — the shame would 
 rest also on her memory.' 
 
 ' Then,' said Sir Edric, in a low, 
 unfaltering voice, ' this night for 
 the sake of Eve I will break my 
 word, and lose my own soul eter- 
 nally. ' 
 
 About an hour afterwards Sir 
 Edric and Dr. Dennison left the 
 house together. The doctor carried 
 a stable lantern in his hand. Sir 
 Edric bore in his arms something 
 wrapped in a blanket. They went 
 through the long garden, out into 
 the orchard that skirts the north 
 side of the park, and then across a 
 field to a small dark plantation 
 known as Hal's Planting. In the 
 very heart of Hal's Planting there 
 are some curious caves : access to 
 the innermost chamber of them is 
 exceedingly difficult and dangerous, 
 and only possible to a climber of 
 exceptional skill and courage. As 
 they returned from these caves. 
 Sir Edric no longer carried his 
 121 G 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 burden. The dawn was breaking 
 and the birds began to sing. 
 
 'Could not they be quiet just 
 for this morning ?' said Sir Edrie 
 wearily. 
 
 There were but few people who 
 were asked to attend the funeral of 
 L,ady Vanquerest and of the baby 
 which, it was said, had only survived 
 tier by a few hours. There were 
 but three people who knew that 
 only one body — the body of Lady 
 Vanquerest — was really inteiTed on 
 that occasion. These three were 
 Sir Edric Vanquerest, Dr. Dennison, 
 and a nurse whom it had been found 
 expedient to take into their con- 
 fidence. 
 
 During the next six years Sir 
 Edric lived, almost in solitude, a 
 life of great sanctity, devoting 
 much of his time to the education 
 of the younger Edric, the child that 
 he had by his first wife. In the 
 course of this time some strange 
 stories began to be told and believed 
 in the neighbourhood with reference 
 122 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 to Hal's Planting, and the place was 
 generally avoided. 
 
 When Sir Edric lay on his death- 
 bed the windows of the chamber 
 were open, and suddenly thi-ough 
 them came a low cry. The doctor in 
 attendance hardly regarded it, sup- 
 posing that it came from one of the 
 owls in the trees outside. But Sir 
 Edric, at the sound of it, rose right 
 up in bed before anyone could stay 
 him, and flinging up his arms cried, 
 ' Wolves ! wolves ! wolves !' Then 
 he fell forward on his face, dead. 
 
 And four generations passed away. 
 
 II 
 
 Towards the latter end of the nine- 
 teenth century, John Marsh, who 
 was the oldest man in the village of 
 Mansteth, could be prevailed upon 
 to state what he recollected. His 
 two sons supported him in his old 
 age ; he never felt the pinch of 
 123 g2 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 poverty, and he always had money 
 in his pocket ; but it was a settled 
 principle with him that he would 
 not pay for the pint of beer which 
 he drank occasionally in the parlour 
 of The Stag. Sometimes Farmer 
 Wynthwaite paid for the beer ; 
 sometimes it was Mr. Spicer from 
 the post-office ; sometimes the land- 
 lord of The Stag himself would 
 finance the old man's evening dis- 
 sipation. In return, John Marsh 
 was prevailed upon to state what 
 he recollected ; this he would do 
 with great heartiness and strict im- 
 partiality, recalling the intemper- 
 ance of a former Wynthwaite and 
 the dishonesty of some ancestral 
 Spicer while he drank the beer of 
 their direct descendants. He would 
 tell you, with two tough old fingers 
 crooked round the handle of the 
 pewter that you had provided, how 
 your grandfather was a poor thing, 
 ' fit for nowt but to brak steeans by 
 ta rord-side.' He was so disrespect- 
 ful that it was believed that he 
 124 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 spoke truth. He was particularly 
 disrespectful when he spoke of 
 that most devilish family^ the Van- 
 querests ; and he never tired of 
 recounting the stories that from 
 generation to generation had grown 
 up about them. It would be ob- 
 jectedj sometimes, that the present 
 Sir Edric, the last surviving member 
 of the race, was a pleasant-spoken 
 young man, with none of the family 
 wildness and hot temper. It was 
 for no sin of his that Hal's Planting 
 was haunted — a thing which every- 
 one in Mansteth, and many beyond 
 it, most devoutly believed. John 
 Marsh would hear no apology for 
 him, nor for any of his ancestors ; 
 he recounted the prophecy that an 
 old mad woman had made of the 
 family before her strange death, 
 and hoped, fervently, that he might 
 live to see it fulfilled. 
 
 The third baronet, as has already 
 
 been told, had lived the latter part 
 
 of his life, after his second wife's 
 
 death, in peace and quietness. Of 
 
 125 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 him John Marsh remembered 
 nothing, of course, and could only 
 recall the few fragments of informa- 
 tion that had been handed down to 
 him. He had been told that this 
 Sir Edric, who had travelled a good 
 deal, at one time kept wolves, in- 
 tending to train them to serve as 
 dogs ; these wolves were not kept 
 under proper restraint, and became 
 a kind of terror to the neighbour- 
 hood. Lady Vanquerest, his second 
 wife, had asked him frequently to 
 destroy these beasts ; but Sir Edric, 
 although it was said that he loved 
 his second wife even more than he 
 hated the first, Avas obstinate when 
 any of his whims were crossed, and 
 put her off with promises. Then 
 one day Lady Vanquerest herself 
 was attacked by the wolves ; she 
 was not bitten, but she was badly 
 frightened. That filled Sir Edric 
 with remorse, and, when it was too 
 late, he went out into the yard 
 where the wolves were kept and shot 
 them all. A few months afterwards 
 126 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 Lady Vanquerest died in childbirth. 
 It was a queer things John Marsh 
 noted, that it was just at this time 
 that Hal's Planting began to get 
 such a bad name. The fourth 
 baronet was, John Marsh con- 
 sidered, the worst of the race ; it 
 was to him that the old mad woman 
 had made her prophecy, an incident 
 that Marsh himself had witnessed 
 in his childhood and still vividly 
 remembered. 
 
 The baronet, in his old age, had 
 been cast up by his vices on the 
 shores of melancholy ; heavy-eyed, 
 gray-haired, bent, he seemed to 
 pass through life as in a dream. 
 Every day he would go out on 
 horseback, always at a walking 
 pace, as though he were following 
 the funeral of his past self. One 
 night he was riding up the village 
 street as this old woman came down 
 it. Her name was Ann Ruthers ; 
 she had a kind of reputation in the 
 village, and although all said that 
 she was mad, many of her utter- 
 127 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 ances were remembered, and she 
 was treated with respect. It was 
 growing dark, and the village street 
 was almost empty; but just at the 
 lower end was the usual group of 
 men by the door of The Stag, 
 dimly illuminated by the light that 
 came through the quaint windows 
 of the old inn. They glanced at 
 Sir Edric as he rode slowly past 
 them, taking no notice of their 
 respectful salutes. At the upper 
 end of the street there were two 
 persons. One was Ann Ruthers, a 
 tall, gaunt old woman, her head 
 wrapped in a shawl ; the other was 
 John Marsh. He was then a boy 
 of eight, and he was feeling some- 
 what frightened. He had been on 
 an expedition to a distant and foetid 
 pond, and in the black mud and 
 clay about its borders he had dis- 
 covered live newts ; he had three 
 of them in his pocket, and this was 
 to some extent a joy to him, but 
 his joy was damped by his know- 
 ledge that he was coming home 
 128 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 much too late, and would probably 
 be chastised m consequence. He 
 was unable to walk fast or to run, 
 because Ann Ruthers was hnme- 
 diately in front of him, and he 
 dared not pass her, especially at 
 night. She walked on until she 
 met Sir Edric, and then, standing 
 still, she called him by name. He 
 pulled in his horse and raised his 
 heavy eyes to look at her. Then 
 in loud clear tones she spoke to 
 him, and John Marsh heard and 
 remembered every word that she 
 said ; it was her prophecy of the 
 end of the Vanquerests. Sir Edric 
 never answered a word. When she 
 had finished, he rode on, while she 
 remained standing there, her eyes 
 fixed on the stars above her. John 
 Marsh dared not pass the mad 
 woman ; he turned round and 
 walked back, keeping close to Sir 
 Edric's horse. Quite suddenly, 
 without a word of warning, as if in 
 a moment of ungovernable irrita- 
 tion, Sir Edric wheeled his horse 
 129 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 round and struck the boy across 
 the face with his switch. 
 
 On the following morning John 
 Marsh — or rather, his parents — 
 received a handsome solatium in 
 coin of the realm ; but sixty-five 
 years afterwards he had not forgiven 
 that blow, and still spoke of the 
 Vanquerests as a most devilish 
 family, still hoped and prayed that 
 he might see the prophecy fulfilled. 
 He would relate, too, the death of 
 Ann Ruthers, which occurred either 
 later on the night of her prophecy 
 or early on the following day. She 
 .would often x'oam about the country 
 all night, and on this particular night 
 she left the main road to wander 
 over the Vanquerest lands, where 
 trespassers, especially at night, were 
 not welcomed. But no one saw 
 her, and it seemed that she had 
 made her way to a part where no 
 one was likely to see her ; for none 
 of the keepers would have entered 
 Hal's Planting by night. Her body 
 was found there at noon on the 
 130 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 following day, lying under the tall 
 bracken^ dead, but without any 
 mark of violence upon it. It was 
 considered that she had died in a 
 fit. This naturally added to the 
 ill-repute of Hal's Planting. The 
 woman's death caused considerable 
 sensation in the village. Sir Edric 
 sent a messenger to the married 
 sister with whom she had lived, 
 saying that he wished to pay all 
 the funeral expenses. This offer, 
 as John Marsh recalled with satis- 
 faction, was refused. 
 
 Of the last two baronets he had 
 but little to tell. The fifth baronet 
 was credited with the family temper, 
 but he conducted himself in a per- 
 fectly conventional way, and did 
 not seem in the least to belong to 
 romance. He was a good man of 
 business, and devoted himself to 
 making up, as far as he could, 
 for the very extravagant expendi- 
 ture of his predecessors. His son, 
 the present Sir Edric, was a fine 
 young fellow and popular in the 
 131 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 village. Even John Marsh could 
 find nothing to say against him ; 
 other people in the village were 
 interested in him. It was said that 
 he had chosen a wife in London — a 
 Miss Guerdon — and would shortly 
 be back to see that Mansteth Hall 
 was put in proper order for her 
 before his marriage at the close of 
 the season. Modernity kills ghostly 
 romance. It was difficult to asso- 
 ciate this modern and handsome 
 Sir Edric, bright and spirited, a 
 good sportsman and a good fellow, 
 with the doom that had been fore- 
 told for the Vanquerest family. He 
 himself knew the tradition and 
 laughed at it. He wore clothes 
 made by a London tailor, looked 
 healthy, smiled cheerfully, and, in a 
 vain attempt to shame his own head- 
 keeper, had himself spent a night 
 alone in Hal's Planting. This last 
 was used by Mr. Spicer in argument, 
 who would ask John Marsh what he 
 made of it. John Marsh replied, 
 contemptuously, that it was ' nowt.' 
 132 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 It was not so that the Vanquerest 
 family was to end ; but when the 
 thing, whatever it was^ that Hved in 
 Hal's Planting, left it and came up 
 to the house, to Mansteth Hall 
 itself, then one would see the end 
 of the Vanquerests. So Ann Ruthers 
 had prophesied. Sometimes Mr. 
 Spicer would ask the pertinent 
 question, how did John Marsh know 
 that there really was anything in 
 Hal's Planting ? This he asked, less 
 because he disbelieved, than because 
 he wished to draw forth an account 
 of John's personal experiences. 
 These were given in great detail, 
 but they did not amount to very 
 much. One night John Marsh had 
 been taken by business — Sir Edric's 
 keepers would have called the busi- 
 ness hj hard names — into the neigh- 
 bourhood ot Hal's Planting. He 
 had there been suddenly startled by 
 a cry, and had run away as though 
 he were running for his life. That 
 was all he could tell about the cry 
 — it was the kind of cry to make a 
 133 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 man lose his head and run. And 
 then it always happened that John 
 Marsh was urged by his companions 
 to enter Hal's Planting himself, 
 and discover what was there. John 
 pursed his thin lips together, and 
 hinted that that also might be done 
 one of these days. Whereupon Mr. 
 Spicer looked across his pipe to 
 Farmer Wynthwaite, and smiled 
 significantly. 
 
 Shortly before Sir Edric's return 
 from London, the attention of Man- 
 steth was once more directed to 
 Hal's Planting, but not by any 
 supei'natural occurrence. Quite 
 suddenly, on a calm day, two trees 
 there fell with a crash ; there were 
 caves in the centre of the plantation, 
 and it seemed as if the roof of some 
 big chamber in these caves had given 
 way. 
 
 They talked it over one night 
 in the parlour of The Stag. There 
 was water in these caves. Farmer 
 Wynthwaite knew it ; and he ex- 
 pected a further subsidence. If 
 134 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 the whole thing collapsed^ what 
 then ? 
 
 ' Ay/ said John Marsh. He rose 
 from his chair, and pointed in the 
 direction of the Hall with his thumb. 
 ' What then }' 
 
 He walked across to the fire, 
 looked at it meditatively for a 
 moment, and then spat in it. 
 
 ' A trewly wun'ftd owd mon/ said 
 Farmer Wynthwaite as he watched 
 him. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the smoking-room at Mansteth 
 Hall sat Sir Edric with his friend 
 and intended brother-in-law, Dr. 
 Andrew Guerdon. Both men were 
 on the verge of middle-age ; there 
 was hardly a year's difference be- 
 tween them. Yet Guerdon looked 
 much the older man ; that was, 
 perhaps, because he wore a short, 
 black beard, while Sir Edric was 
 135 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 clean shaven. Guerdon was thought 
 to be an enviable man. His father 
 had made a fortune in the firm of 
 Guerdon, Guerdon and Bird ; the 
 old style was still retained at the 
 bank, although there was no longer 
 a Guerdon in the firm. Andrew 
 Guerdon had a handsome allowance 
 from his father, and had also in- 
 herited money through his mother. 
 He had taken the degree of Doctor 
 of Medicine ; he did not practise, 
 but he was still interested in science, 
 especially in out-of-the-way science. 
 He was unmarried, gifted with per- 
 • petually good health, interested in 
 life, popular. His friendship with 
 Sir Edric dated from their college 
 days. It had for some years been 
 almost certain that Sir Edric would 
 marry his friend's sister, Ray Guer- 
 don, although the actual betrothal 
 had only been announced that sea- 
 son. 
 
 On a bureau in one corner of the 
 room were spread a couple of plans 
 and various slips of paper. Sir Edi'ic 
 136 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 was wrinkling his brows over them, 
 dropping cigar- ash over them, and 
 finally getting angry over them. 
 He pushed back his chair irritably, 
 and turned towards Guerdon. 
 
 ' Look here, old man !' he said. 
 ' I desire to curse the original 
 architect of this house — to curse 
 him in his down-sitting and his 
 uprising.' 
 
 ' Seeing that the original archi- 
 tect has gone to where beyond these 
 voices there is peace, he won't be 
 offended. Neither shall I. But 
 why worry yourself? You've been 
 rooted to that blessed bureau all 
 day, and now, after dinner, when 
 every self-respecting man chucks 
 business, you return to it again — 
 even as a sow returns to her wallow- 
 ing in the mire.' 
 
 ' Now, my good Andrew, do be 
 reasonable. How on earth can I 
 bring Ray to such a place as this .^ 
 And it's built with such ingrained 
 malice and vexatiousness that one 
 can't live in it as it is, and can't 
 137 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 alter it without having the whole 
 shanty tumble down about one's 
 ears. Look at this plan now. That 
 thing's what they're pleased to call 
 a morning room. If the window 
 had been here there would have 
 been an uninterrupted view of open 
 country. So what does this forsaken 
 fool of an architect do ? He sticks 
 it there, where you see it on the 
 plan, looking straight on to a blank 
 wall with a stable yard on the other 
 side of it. But that's a trifle. Look 
 
 here again— ' 
 
 ' I won't look any more. This 
 place is all right. It was good 
 enough for your father and mother 
 and several generations before them 
 until you arose to improve the world ; 
 it was good enough for you until you 
 started to get married. It's a pictur- 
 esque place, and if you begin to alter 
 it you'll spoil it.' Guerdon looked 
 round the room critically. ' Upon 
 my word/ he said, ' I don't know of 
 any house where I like the smoking- 
 room as well as I like this. It's not 
 138 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 too big, and yet it's fairly lofty ; it's 
 got those comfortable-looking oak- 
 panelled walls. That's the right 
 kind of fireplace, too, and these 
 corner cupboards are handy.' 
 
 ' Of course this won't remain the 
 smoking-room. It has the morning 
 sun, and Ray likes that, so I shall 
 make it into her boudoir. It is a 
 nice room, as you say.' 
 
 ' That's it, Ted, my boy,' said 
 Guerdon bitterly ; ' take a room 
 which is designed by nature and 
 art to be a smoking-room and turn 
 it into a boudoir. Turn it into the 
 very deuce of a boudoir with the 
 morning sun laid on for ever and 
 ever. Waste the twelfth of August 
 by getting married on it. Spend 
 the winter in foreign parts, and 
 write letters that you can breakfast 
 out of doors, just as if you'd created 
 the mildness of the climate your- 
 self. Come back in the spring and 
 spend the London season in the 
 country in order to avoid seeing 
 anybody who wants to see you. 
 139 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 That's the way to do it ; that's the 
 way to get yourself generally loved 
 and admired !' 
 
 ' That's chiefly imagination,' said 
 Sir Edric. ' I'm blest if I can see 
 why I should not make this house 
 fit for Ray to live in.' 
 
 ' It's a queer thing : Ray was a 
 good girl, and you weren't a bad 
 sort yourself. You prepare to go 
 into partnership, and you both 
 straightway turn into despicable 
 lunatics. I'll have a word or two 
 with Ray. But I'm serious about 
 this house. Don't go tinkering it ; 
 it's got a character of its own, and 
 you'd better leave it. Turn half 
 Tottenham Court Road and the 
 culture thereof — Heaven help it ! — 
 into your town house if you like, 
 but leave this alone.' 
 
 ' Haven't got a town house — yet. 
 Anyway I'm not going to be unsuit- 
 able ; I'm not going to feel myself 
 at the mercy of a big firm. I shall 
 supervise the whole thing myself. 
 I shall drive over to Challonsea to- 
 140 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 morrow afternoon and see if I can't 
 find some intelligent and fairly con- 
 scientious workmen.' 
 
 ' That's all right ; you supervise 
 them and I'll supervise you. You'll 
 be much too new if I don't look 
 after you. You've got an old legend, 
 I believe, that the family's coming 
 to a bad end ; you must be consis- 
 tent with it. As you are bad, be 
 beautiful. By the way, what do 
 you yourself think of the legend ?' 
 
 ' It's nothing,' said Sir Edric, 
 speaking, however, rather seriously. 
 ' They say that Hal's Planting is 
 haunted by something that will not 
 die. Certainly an old woman, who 
 for some godless reason of her own 
 made her way there by night, was 
 found there dead on the following 
 morning ; but her death could be, 
 and was, accounted for by natural 
 causes. Certainly, too, I haven't a 
 man in my employ who'll go there 
 by night now.' 
 
 ' Why not ?' 
 
 ' How should I know ? I fancy 
 141 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 that a few of the villagers sit booz- 
 ing at The Stag in the evening, 
 and like to scare themselves by 
 swopping lies about Hal's Planting. 
 I've done my best to stop it. I 
 once, as you know, took a rug, a 
 revolver and a flask of whisky and 
 spent the night there myself But 
 even that didn't convince them.' 
 
 ' Yes, you told me. By the way, 
 did you hear or see anything }' 
 
 Sir Edric hesitated before he 
 answered. Finally he said : 
 
 ' Look here, old man, I wouldn't 
 tell this to anyone but yourself I 
 did think that I heard something. 
 About the middle of the night I 
 was awakened by a cry ; I can only 
 say that it was the kind of cry that 
 frightened me. I sat up, and at 
 that moment I heard some great, 
 heavy thing go swishing through 
 the bracken behind me at a great 
 rate. Then all was still ; I looked 
 about, but I could find nothing. At 
 last I argued as I would argue now 
 that a man who is just awake is 
 142 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 only half awake, and that his powers 
 of observation, by hearing or any 
 other sense, are not to be trusted. 
 I even pei'suaded myself to go to 
 sleep again, and there was no more 
 disturbance. However, there's a 
 real danger there now. In the 
 heart of the plantation there are 
 some eaves and a subterranean 
 spring ; lately there has been some 
 slight subsidence there, and the 
 same sort of thing will happen 
 again in all probabilit}'. I wired to- 
 day to an expert to come and look 
 at the place ; he has i-eplied that 
 he will come on Monday. The 
 legend says that when the thing 
 that lives in Hal's Planting comes 
 up to the Hall the Vanquerests will 
 be ended. If I cut down the trees 
 and then break up the place with a 
 charge of dynamite I shouldn't 
 wonder if I spoiled that legend.' 
 
 Guerdon smiled. 
 
 ' I'm inclined to agree with you 
 all through. It's absurd to trust 
 the immediate impressions of a man 
 143 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 just awakened ; what you heard 
 was probably a stray cow.' 
 
 ' No cow/ said Sir Edric impar- 
 tially. ' There's a low wall all round 
 the place — not much of a wall, but 
 too much for a cow.' 
 
 ' Well, something else — some 
 equally obvious explanation. In 
 dealing with such questions, never 
 forget that you're in the nineteenth 
 century. By the way, your man's 
 coming on Monday. That reminds 
 me to-day's Friday, and as an indis- 
 putable consequence to-morrow's 
 Saturday, therefore, if you want to 
 find your intelligent workmen it 
 will be of no use to go in the after- 
 noon.' 
 
 ' True,' said Sir Edric, ' I'll go in 
 the morning.' He walked to a tray 
 on a side table and poured a little 
 whisky into a tumbler. ' They don't 
 seem to have brought any seltzer 
 water,' he remarked in a grumbling 
 voice. 
 
 He rang the bell impatiently. 
 
 ' Now why don't you use those 
 14.4. 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 corner cupboards for that kind of 
 thing ? If you kept a supply there^ 
 it would be handy in case of acci- 
 dents.' 
 
 'They're full up already.' 
 He opened one of them and 
 showed that it was filled with old 
 account -books and yellow docu- 
 ments tied up in bundles. The 
 servant entered. 
 
 ' Oh, I say;, there isn't any seltzer. 
 Bring it, please.' 
 
 He turned again to Guerdon. 
 ' You might do me a favour when 
 I'm away to-morrow, if there's 
 nothing else that you want to do. 
 I wish you'd look through all these 
 papers for me. They're all old. 
 Possibly some of them ought to go 
 to my solicitor, and I know that a 
 lot of them ought to be destroyed. 
 Some few may be of family interest. 
 It's not the kind of thing that I 
 could ask a stranger or a servant to 
 do for me, and I've so much on 
 hand just now before my mar- 
 riage ' 
 
 145 H 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 'But of course, my dear fellow, 
 I'll do it with pleasure.' 
 
 ' I'm ashamed to give you all this 
 bother. However, you said that 
 you were coming here to help me, 
 and I take you at your word. By 
 the way, I think you'd better not 
 say anything to Ray about the Hal's 
 Planting story.' 
 
 ' I may be some of the things that 
 you take me for, but really I am not 
 a common ass. Of course I shouldn't 
 tell her.' 
 
 * I'll tell her myself, and I'd 
 sooner do it when I've got the 
 whole thing cleared up. Well, I'm 
 really obliged to you.' 
 
 ' I needn't remind you that I hope 
 to receive as much again. I believe 
 in compensation. Nature always 
 gives it and always requires it. One 
 finds it everywhere, in philology 
 and onwards.' 
 
 ' I could mention omissions.' 
 
 ' They are few, and make a belief 
 in a hereafter to supply them logical.' 
 
 ' Lunatics, for instance ?' 
 146 
 
 i 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 'Their delusions are often their 
 compensation. They argue cor- 
 rectly from false premises. A 
 lunatic believing himself to be a 
 millionaire has as much delight as 
 money can give.' 
 
 ' How about deformities or mon- 
 strosities ?' 
 
 'The principle is there, although 
 I don't pretend that the compensa- 
 tion is alwaj's adequate. A man 
 who is deprived of one sense gene- 
 rally has another developed with 
 unusual acuteness. As for mon- 
 strosities of at all a human type 
 one sees none ; the things ex- 
 hibited in fairs are, alnaost without 
 exception, fi*auds. They occur 
 rarely, and one does not know 
 enough about them. A really good 
 text-book on the subject would be 
 interesting. Still, such stories as I 
 have heard would bear out my 
 theory — stories of their superhuman 
 strength and cunning, and of the 
 extraordinary prolongation of life 
 that has been noted, or is said to 
 147 II 2 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 have been noted, in them. But it 
 is hardly fair to test my principle 
 by exceptional cases. Besides, any- 
 one can prove anything except that 
 anything' s worth proving.' 
 
 ' That's a cheerful thing to say. 
 I wouldn't like to swear that I could 
 prove how the Hal's Planting legend 
 started ; but I fancy, do you know, 
 that I could make a very good shot 
 at it.' 
 ' Well r 
 
 ' My great - grandfather kept 
 wolves — I can't say why. Do you 
 remember the portrait of him .'' — not 
 the one when he was a boy, the 
 •other. It hangs on the staircase. 
 There's now a group of wolves in 
 one corner of the picture. I was 
 looking carefully at the picture one 
 day and thought that I detected 
 some over-painting in that corner ; 
 indeed, it was done so roughly that 
 a child would have noticed it if the 
 picture had been hung in a better 
 light. I had the over-painting re- 
 moved by a good man, and under- 
 148 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 neath there was that group of wolves 
 depicted. Well, one of these wolves 
 must have escaped, got into Hal's 
 Planting, and scared an old woman 
 or two ; that would start a story, 
 and human mendacity would do the 
 rest.' 
 
 ' Yes/ said Guei'don meditatively, 
 ' that doesn't sound improbable. 
 But why did your great-grandfather 
 have the wolves painted out .'"' 
 
 IV 
 
 Saturday morning Avas fine, but 
 very hot and sultry. After break- 
 fast, when Sir Edric had driven off 
 to Challonsea, Andrew Guerdon 
 settled himself in a comfortable 
 chair in the smoking-room. The 
 contents of the corner cupboard 
 were piled up on a table by his side. 
 He lit his pipe and began to go 
 through the papers and put them 
 in order. He had been at work 
 149 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 about a quarter of an hour when the 
 butler entered rather abruptly, look- 
 ing pale and disturbed. 
 
 ' In Sir Edric's absence, sir, it 
 was thought that I had better come 
 to you for advice. There's been an 
 awful thing happened.' 
 
 ' Well r 
 
 ' They've found a corpse in Hal's 
 Planting about half an hour ago. 
 It's the body of an old man, John 
 Marsh, who used to live in the vil- 
 lage. He seems to have died in 
 some kind of a fit. They were 
 bringing it here, but I had it taken 
 down to the village where his cot- 
 tage is. Then I sent to the police 
 and to a doctor.' 
 
 There was a moment or two's 
 silence before Guerdon answered. 
 
 'This is a terrible thing. I don't 
 know of anything else that you 
 could do. Stop ; if the police want 
 to see the spot whei*e the body was 
 found, I think that Sir Edric would 
 like them to have every facility.' 
 
 ' Quite so, sir.' 
 
 150 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 ' And no one else must be allowed 
 there.' 
 
 ' No, sir. Thank you.' 
 
 The butler withdrew. 
 
 Guerdon arose from his chair and 
 began to pace up and down the 
 room 
 
 ' What an impressive thing a coin- 
 cidence is !' he thought to himself. 
 ' Last night the whole of the Hal's 
 Planting story seemed to me not 
 worth consideration. But this second 
 death there — it can be only coinci- 
 dence. What else could it be .''' 
 
 The question would not leave 
 him. What else could it be ? Had 
 that dead man seen something there 
 and died in sheer terror of it .'' Had 
 Sir Edric really heard something 
 when he spent that night there 
 alone .'' He returned to his work, 
 but he found that he got on with it 
 but slowly. Every now and then 
 his mind wandered back to the 
 subject of Hal's Planting. His 
 doubts annoyed him. It was un- 
 scientific and unmodern of him to 
 151 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 feel any perplexity, because a natural 
 and X'ational explanation was pos- 
 sible ; he was annoyed with himself 
 for being perplexed. 
 
 After luncheon he strolled round 
 the grounds and smoked a cigar. 
 He noticed that a thick bank of 
 dark, slate-coloured clouds was 
 gathering in the west. The air 
 was very still. In a remote corner 
 of the garden a big heap of weeds 
 was burning ; the smoke went up 
 perfectly straight. On the top of 
 the heap light flames danced ; they 
 were like the ghosts of flames in the 
 strange light. A few big drops of 
 rain fell. The snaall shower did not 
 last for five seconds. Guerdon 
 glanced at his watch. Sir Edric 
 would be back in an hour, and he 
 wanted to finish his work with 
 the papers before Sir Edric's return, 
 so he went back into the house 
 once more. 
 
 He picked up the first document 
 that came to hand. As he did so, 
 another, smaller, and written on 
 152 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 parchment, which had been folded 
 m with it, dropped out. He began 
 to read the parchment ; it was 
 written in faded ink, and the parch- 
 ment itself was yellow and in many 
 places stained. It was the confes- 
 sion of the third baronet — he could 
 tell that by the date upon it. It 
 told the story of that night when 
 he and Dr. Dennison went together 
 carrying a burden through the long 
 garden out into the orchard that 
 skirts the north side of the park, 
 and then across a field to a small, 
 dark plantation. It told how he 
 made a vow to God and did not keep 
 it. These were the last words of 
 the confession: 
 
 ' Already upon me has the punish- 
 ment fallen, and the devil's wolves 
 do seem to hunt me in my sleep 
 nightly. But I know that there is 
 worse to come. The thing that I 
 took to Hal's Planting is dead. 
 Yet will it come back again to the 
 Hall, and then will the Vanquerests 
 be at an end. This writing I have 
 153 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 committed to chancCj neither show- 
 ing it nor hiding it, and leaving it to 
 chance if any man shall read it.' 
 
 Underneath there was a line 
 written in darker ink, and in quite 
 a different handwriting. It was 
 dated fifteen years later, and the 
 initials R.D. were appended to it : 
 
 ' It is not dead. I do not think 
 that it will ever die.' 
 
 When Andrew Guerdon had 
 finished reading this document, he 
 looked slowly round the room. The 
 subject had got on his nerves, and 
 he was almost expecting to see 
 •something. Then he did his best 
 to pull himself together. The first 
 question he put to himself was 
 this : ' Has Ted ever seen this ? 
 Obviously he had not. If he had, 
 he could not have taken the tradi- 
 tion of Hal's Planting so lightly, 
 nor have spoken of it so freely. 
 Besides, he would either have men- 
 tioned the document to Guerdon, 
 or he would have kept it carefully 
 concealed. He would not have 
 154 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 allowed him to come across it 
 casually in that way. ' Ted must 
 never see it/ thought Guerdon to 
 himself. He then remembered the 
 pile of weeds he had seen burning 
 in the garden, He put the parch- 
 ment in his pocket, and hurried 
 out. There was no one about. He 
 spread the parchment on the top of 
 the pilcj and waited until it was 
 entirely consumed. Then he went 
 back to the smoking-room ; he felt 
 easier now. 
 
 ' Yes/ thought Guerdon, ' if Ted 
 had first of all heard of the finding 
 of that body, and then had read 
 that document, I believe that he 
 would have gone mad. Things that 
 come near us affect us deeply.' 
 
 Guerdon himself was much moved. 
 He clung steadily to reason ; he felt 
 himself able to give a natui'al ex- 
 planation all through, and yet he 
 was nervous. The net of coinci- 
 dence had closed in around him ; 
 the mention in Sir Edric's confession 
 of the prophecy which had subse- 
 155 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 quently become traditional in the 
 village alarmed him. And what 
 did that last line mean ? He sup- 
 posed that R.D. must be the initials 
 of Dr. Dennison. What did he 
 mean by saying that the thing was 
 not dead ? Did he mean that it 
 had not really been killed, that it 
 had been gifted with some preter- 
 natural strength and vitality and 
 had survived, though Sir Edrie did 
 not know it ? He recalled what he 
 had said about the prolongation of 
 the lives of such things. If it still 
 survived, why had it never been 
 -seen ? Had it joined to the wild 
 hardiness of the beast a cunning 
 that was human — or more than 
 human ? How could it have lived ? 
 There was water in the caves, he 
 reflected, and food could have been 
 secured — a wild beast's food. Or 
 did Dr. Dennison mean that though 
 the thing itself was dead, its wraith 
 survived and haunted the place } 
 He wondered how the doctor had 
 found Sir Edric's confession, and 
 156 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 why he had written that hue at the 
 end of it. As he sat thinking, a 
 low rumble of thunder in the dis- 
 tance startled him. He felt a 
 touch of panic — a sudden impulse 
 to leave Mansteth at once and, if 
 possible, to take Ted with him. Ray 
 could never live there. He went 
 over the whole thing in his mind 
 again and again, at one time calm 
 and argumentative about it, and 
 at another shaken by blind horror. 
 
 Sir Edric, on his return from 
 Challonsea a few minutes after- 
 wards, came straight to the smoking- 
 room where Guerdon was. He 
 looked tired and depressed. He 
 began to speak at once : 
 
 ' You needn't tell me about it — 
 about John Marsh. I heard about 
 it in the village.' 
 
 * Did you ? It's a painful occur- 
 rence, although, of course ' 
 
 ' Stop. Don't go into it. Any- 
 thing can be explained — I know 
 that' 
 
 ' I went through those papers 
 157 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 and account-books while you were 
 away. Most of them may just as 
 Avell be destroyed ; but there are 
 a few — I put them aside there — 
 which might be kept. There was 
 nothing of any interest.' 
 
 ' Thanks ; I'm much obhged to 
 you.' 
 
 ' Oh, and look here, I've got an 
 idea. I've been examining the 
 plans of the house^ and I'm coming 
 round to your opinion. There are 
 some alterations which should be 
 made, and yet I'm afraid that they'd 
 inake the place look patched and 
 renovated. It wouldn't be a bad 
 thing to know what Ray thought 
 about it.' 
 
 ' That's impossible. The work- 
 men come on Monday, and we 
 can't consult her before then. 
 Besides, I have a general notion 
 what she would like.' 
 
 ' We could catch the night express 
 to town at Challonsea, and ' 
 
 Sir Edric rose from his seat 
 angrily and hit the table. 
 158 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 ' Good God ! don't sit there 
 hunting up excuses to cover my 
 cowardice, and making it easy for 
 me to bolt. What do you suppose 
 the villagers would say, and what 
 would my own servants say, if I ran 
 away to-night ? I am a coward — I 
 know it. I'm horribly afraid. But 
 I'm not going to act like a coward 
 if I can help it.' 
 
 ' Now, my dear chap, don't excite 
 yourself. If you are going to care 
 at all — to care as much as the con- 
 ventional damn — for what people 
 say, you'll have no peace in life. 
 And I don't believe you're afraid. 
 What are you afraid of .^' 
 
 Sir Edric paced once or twice up 
 and down the room, and then sat 
 down again before replying. 
 
 ' Look here, Andrew, I'll make a 
 clean breast of it. I've always 
 laughed at the tradition ; I forced 
 myself, as it seemed at least, to 
 disprove it by spending a night in 
 Hal's Planting ; I took the pains 
 even to make a theory which would 
 159 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 account for its origin. All the time 
 I had a sneaking, stifled belief in it. 
 With the help of my reason I 
 crushed that ; but now my reason 
 has thrown up the job, and I'm 
 afraid. I'm afraid of the Undying 
 Thing that is in Hal's Planting. I 
 heard it that night. John Marsh 
 saw it last night — they took me to 
 see the body, and the face was 
 awful ; and I believe that one day 
 it will come from Hal's Plant- 
 ing ' 
 
 ' Yes,' interrupted Guerdon, ' I 
 know. And at present I believe 
 as much. Last night we laujjhed 
 at the whole thing, and we shall 
 live to laugh at it again, and be 
 ashamed of ourselves for a couple 
 of superstitious old women. I 
 fancy that beliefs are affected by 
 weather- — there's thunder in the 
 air.' 
 
 ' No,' said Sir Edric, ' my belief 
 has come to stay.' 
 
 ' And what are you going to do }' 
 
 ' I'm going to test it. On Monday 
 160 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 I can begin to get to work, and 
 then I'll blow up Hal's Planting 
 with dynamite. After that we 
 shan't need to believe — we shall 
 know. And now let's dismiss the 
 subject. Come down into the 
 billiard-room and have a game. 
 Until Monday I won't think of the 
 thing again.' 
 
 Long before dinner. Sir Edric's 
 depression seemed to have com- 
 pletely vanished. At dinner he was 
 boisterous and amused. Afterwards 
 he told stories and was interesting;. 
 
 It was late at night ; the terrific 
 storm that was raging outside had 
 awoke Guerdon from sleep. Hope- 
 less of getting to sleep again, he 
 had arisen and dressed, and now 
 sat in the window-seat watching 
 the storm. He had never seen 
 anything like it before ; and every 
 now and then the sky seemed to be 
 torn across as if by hands of white 
 fire. Suddenly he heard a tap at 
 161 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 his door, and looked round. Sir 
 Edric had already entered ; he also 
 had dressed. He spoke in a curious, 
 subdued voice. 
 
 ' I thought you wouldn't be able 
 to sleep through this. Do you 
 remember that I shut and fastened 
 the dining-room window ?' 
 
 'Yes, I remember it.' 
 
 •^ Well, come in here.' 
 
 Sir Edric led the way to his 
 room, which was immediately over 
 the dining-room. By leaning out 
 of window they could see that 
 the dining-rooin window was open 
 wide. 
 
 * Burglar,' said Guerdon medita- 
 tively. 
 
 ' No,' Sir Edric answered, still 
 speaking in a hushed voice. ' It is 
 the Undying Thing — it has come 
 for me.' 
 
 He snatched up the candle, and 
 made towards the staircase ; Guer- 
 don caught up the loaded revolver 
 which always lay on the table beside 
 Sir Edric' s bed and followed him. 
 162 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 Both men ran down the staircase 
 as though there were not another 
 moment to lose. Sir Edric rushed 
 at the dining-room door, opened it 
 a httle, and looked in. Then he 
 turned to Guerdon, who was just 
 behind him. 
 
 'Go back to your room,' he said 
 authoritatively. 
 
 ' I won't,' said Guerdon. ' Why.'' 
 What is it ?' 
 
 Suddenly the corners of SirEdric's 
 mouth shot outward into the hideous 
 grin of terror. 
 
 ' It's there ! It's there !' he 
 gasped. 
 
 ' Then I come in with you.' 
 
 ' Go back !' 
 
 With a sudden movement, Sir 
 Edric thrust Guerdon away from 
 the door, and then, quick as light, 
 darted in, and locked the door be- 
 hind him. 
 
 Guerdon bent down and listened. 
 He heard Sir Edric say in a firm 
 voice : 
 
 ' Who are you ? What are you ?' 
 1()3 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 Then followed a heavy^ snorting 
 breathing, a low, vibrating growl^ an 
 awful cry, a scuffle. 
 
 Then Guerdon flung himself at 
 the door. He kicked at the lock, 
 but it would not give way. At last 
 he fired his revolver at it. Then 
 he managed to force his way into 
 the room. It was perfectly empty. 
 Overhead he could hear footsteps ; 
 the noise had awakened the ser- 
 vants ; they were standing, tremu- 
 lous, on the upper landing. 
 
 Through the open window access 
 to the garden was easy. Guerdon 
 did not wait to get help ; and in all 
 probability none of the servants 
 could have been persuaded to come 
 with him. He climbed out alone, 
 and, as if by some blind impulse, 
 started to run as hard as he could 
 in the direction of Hal's Planting. 
 He knew that Sir Edric would be 
 found there. 
 
 But when he got within a hun- 
 dred yards of the plantation, he 
 stopped. There had been a great 
 164 
 
THE UNDYING THING 
 
 flash of lightning, and he saw that 
 it had struck one of the trees. 
 Flames darted about the planta- 
 tion as the dry bracken caught. 
 Suddenly, in the light of another 
 flashj he saw the whole of the trees 
 fling their heads upwards ; then 
 came a deafening crash, and the 
 ground slipped under him, and he 
 was flung forward on his face. The 
 plantation had collapsed, fallen 
 through into the caves beneath it. 
 Guerdon slowly regained his feet ; 
 he was surprised to find that he 
 was unhurt. He walked on a few 
 steps, and then fell again ; this 
 time he had fainted away. 
 
 l6.v 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 I HEARD this story from Archdeacon 
 
 M . I should imagine that it 
 
 would not be very difficult, by trim- 
 ming it a little and altering the 
 facts here and there, to make it 
 capable of some simple explanation ; 
 but I have preferred to tell it as it 
 was told to me. 
 
 After all, there is some explana- 
 tion possible, even if there is not 
 one definite and simple explanation 
 clearly indicated. It must rest with 
 the reader whether he will prefer 
 to believe that some of the so-called 
 uncivilized i-aces may possess occult 
 powers transcending anything of 
 which the so-called civilized are 
 capable, or whether he will consider 
 that a series of coincidences is suffi- 
 cient to account for the extraordi- 
 nary incidents which, in a plain brief 
 way, I am about to relate. It does 
 166 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 not seem to me essential to state 
 which view I hold myself, or if I hold 
 neither, and have reasons for not 
 stating a third possible explanation. 
 I must add a word or two with 
 
 regard to Archdeacon M . At 
 
 the time of this story he was in his 
 fiftieth year. He was a fine scholar, 
 a man of considei'able learning. His 
 religious views were remarkably 
 broad ; his enemies said remarkably 
 thin. In his younger days he had 
 been soinething of an athlete, but 
 owing to age, sedentary habits, and 
 some amount of self-indulgence, he 
 had grown stout, and no longer took 
 exercise in any form. He had no 
 nervous trouble of any kind. His 
 death, from heart disease, took place 
 about three years ago. He told me 
 the story twice, at my request j 
 there was an interval of about six 
 weeks between the two narrations ; 
 some of the details were elicited by 
 questions of my own. With this 
 preliminary note, we may proceed to 
 the story. 
 
 ***** 
 167 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 In January, 1881, Archdeacon 
 
 M , who was a great admirer 
 
 of Tennyson's poetry, came up to 
 London for a few days, chiefly in 
 order to witness the performance 
 of ' The Cup,' at the Lyceum. He 
 was not present on the first night 
 (Monday, January 3), but on a later 
 night in the same week. At that 
 time, of course, the poet had not 
 received his peerage, nor the actor 
 his knighthood. 
 
 On leaving the theatre, less satis- 
 fied with the play than with the 
 magnificence of the setting, the 
 Archdeacon found some slight dif- 
 ficulty in getting a cab. He walked 
 a little way down the Strand to find 
 one, when he encountered unex- 
 pectedly his old friend, Guy Bred- 
 don. 
 
 Breddon (that was not his real 
 name) was a man of considerable 
 fortune, a member of the learned 
 societies, and devoted to Central 
 African exploration. He was two 
 or three years younger than the 
 168 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 Archdeacon, and a man of tremen- 
 dous physique. 
 
 Breddon was surprised to find 
 the Archdeacon in London, and the 
 Archdeacon was equally surprised to 
 find Breddon in England at all. 
 Breddon carried off the Archdeacon 
 with him to his rooms, and sent a 
 servant in a cab to the Langham to 
 pay the Archdeacon's bill and fetch 
 his luggage. The Archdeacon pro- 
 tested, but faintly, and Breddon 
 would not hear of his hospitality 
 being refused. 
 
 Breddon's rooms were an expen- 
 sive suite immediately over a ruinous 
 upholsterer's in a street off Berkeley 
 Square. There was a private street- 
 door, and from it a private staircase 
 to the first and second floors. 
 
 The suite of rooms on the first 
 floor, occupied by Breddon, was 
 entirely shut off from the staircase 
 by a door. The second floor suite, 
 tenanted by an Irish M. P., Avas 
 similarly shut off, and at that time 
 was unoccupied. 
 
 169 I 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 Breddon and tlie- Archdeacon 
 passed through the street-door and 
 up the stairs to the first landing, 
 from whence, by the staircase-door, 
 they entered the flat. Breddon 
 had only recently taken the flat, 
 and the Archdeacon had never been 
 there before. It consisted of a 
 broad L-shaped passage with rooms 
 opening into it. There were many 
 trophies on the walls. Horned 
 heads glared at them ; stealthy but 
 stuffed beasts watched them fur- 
 tively from under tables. Thei'C 
 was a perfect arsenal of murderous 
 weapons gleaming brightly under 
 the shaded gaslights. 
 
 Breddon's servant prepared sup- 
 per for them before leaving for the 
 Langham, and soon the two ntien 
 were discussing Mr. Tennyson, Mr. 
 Irving, and a parody of the ' Queen 
 of the May ' which had recently 
 appeared in Piincli, and doing justice 
 to some oysters, a cold pheasant 
 with an excellent salad, and a bottle 
 of '74 Pommery. It was character- 
 170 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 istic of the Archdeacon that he 
 remembered exactly the items of 
 the supper^ and that Breddon rather 
 neglected the wine. 
 
 After supper they passed into 
 the library, where a bright fire was 
 burning. The Archdeacon walked 
 towards the fire, rubbing his plump 
 hands together. As he did so, a 
 portion of the great rug of gray fur 
 on which he was standing seemed 
 to rise up. It was a gray cat of 
 enormous size, lai-ger than any that 
 the Archdeacon had ever seen 
 before, and of the same colour as 
 the rug on which it had been sleep- 
 ing. It rubbed itself affectionately 
 against the Archdeacon's leg, and 
 purred as he bent down to stroke it. 
 
 ' What an extraordinary animal !' 
 said the Archdeacon. ' I had no 
 idea cats could grow to this size. 
 Its head's queer, too — so much too 
 small for the body.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Breddon, 'and his feet 
 are just as much too big.' 
 
 The gray cat stretched himself 
 171 I 2 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 voluptuouslyunder the Archdeacon's 
 caressing hand, and the feet could 
 be seen plainly. They were veiy 
 broad, and the claws, which shot 
 out, seemed unusually powerful and 
 well developed. The beast's coat 
 was short, thick, and wiry. 
 
 ' Most extraordinary !' the Arch- 
 deacon repeated. 
 
 He lowered himself into a com- 
 fortable chair by the fire. He was 
 still bending over the cat and play- 
 ing with it when a slight chink 
 made him look up. Breddon was 
 putting something down on the 
 table behind the liquor decanters. 
 
 'Any particular breed.^' the Arch- 
 deacon asked. 
 
 ' Not that I know of. Freakish, 
 I should say. We found him on 
 board the boat when I left for home 
 — may have come there after mice. 
 He'd have been thrown overboard 
 but for me. I got rather interested 
 in him. Smoke .''' 
 
 ' Oh, thank you.' 
 
 Outside a cold north wind 
 172 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 screamed in quick gusts. Within 
 came the sharp scratch of the 
 match on the ribbed glass as the 
 Archdeacon lit his cigar, the bubble 
 of the rose-water in Breddon's 
 hookah, the soft step of Breddon's 
 man carrying the Archdeacon's lug- 
 gage into the bedroom at the end 
 of the L-shaped passage, and the 
 constant purring of the big gray cat. 
 
 '^And what's the cat's name.''' the 
 Archdeacon asked. 
 
 Breddon laughed. 
 
 ' Well, if you must have the plain 
 truth, he's called Gray Devil — or, 
 more frequently. Devil tout court.' 
 
 ' Really, now, really, you can't 
 expect an Archdeacon to use such 
 abominable language. I shall call 
 him Gray — or perhaps Mr. Gray 
 would be more respectful, seeing the 
 shortness of our acquaintance. Do 
 you object to the smell of smoke, 
 Mr. Gray ? The intelligent beast 
 does not object. Probably you've 
 accustomed him to it.' 
 
 'Well, seeing what his name is 
 173 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 he could hardly object to smoke, 
 could he ?' 
 
 Breddon's servant entered. As 
 the door opened and shut, one heard 
 for a moment the crackle of the 
 newly-lit fire in the room that 
 awaited the Archdeacon. The ser- 
 vant swept up the hearth, and, under 
 Archidiaconal direction, mixed a 
 lengthy brandy - and - soda. He 
 retired with the information that 
 he would not be wanted again that 
 night. 
 
 ' Did you notice,' asked the Arch- 
 deacon, 'the way Mr. Gray followed 
 your man about } I never saw a 
 more affectionate cat.' 
 
 ' Think so ?' said Breddon. ' Watch 
 this time.' 
 
 For the first time he approached 
 the gray cat, and stretched out his 
 hand as if to pet him. In an instant 
 the cat seemed to have gone mad. 
 Its claws shot out, its back hooped, 
 its coat bristled, its tail stood erect ; 
 it cursed and spat, and its small green 
 eyes glared. But a close observer 
 174 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 would have noticed that all the time 
 it watched not only Breddon, but 
 also that object which had chinked 
 as Breddon had put it down behind 
 the decanters. 
 
 The Archdeacon lay back in his 
 chair and laughed heartily. 
 
 ' What funny creatures they are, 
 and never so funny as when they 
 lose their tempers ! Really, Mr. 
 Gray, out of respect to my cloth, 
 you might have refrained from 
 swearing like that. Poor Mr. Gray ! 
 Poor puss !' 
 
 Breddon resumed his seat with 
 a gi'im smile. The gray cat slowly 
 subsided, and then thrust its head, 
 as though demanding sympathy, 
 into the fat palm of the Arch- 
 deacon's dependent hand. 
 
 Suddenly the Archdeacon's eye 
 lighted on the object which the cat 
 had been watching, visible now that 
 the servant had displaced the de- 
 canters. 
 
 ' Goodness me !' he exclaimed, 
 'you've got a revolver there.' 
 175 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 ' That is so/ said Breddon. 
 
 ' Not loaded, I trust ?* 
 
 ' Oh yes, fully loaded.' 
 
 ' But isn't that very dangerous ?' 
 
 ' Well, no ; I'm used to these 
 things, and I'm not careless with 
 them. I should have thought it 
 more dangerous to have introduced 
 Gray Devil to you without it. He's 
 much more powerful than an ordi- 
 nary cat, and I fancy there's some- 
 thing beside cat in his pedigree. 
 When I bring a stranger to see 
 him I keep the cat covered with the 
 revolver until I see how the land 
 lies. To do the brute justice, he 
 has always been most friendly with 
 everybody except myself. I'm his 
 only antipathy. He'd have gone 
 for me just now but that he's smart 
 enough to be afraid of this.' 
 
 He tapped the revolver. 
 
 ' I see,' said the Archdeacon 
 seriously, ' and can guess how it 
 happened. You scared him one 
 day by firing the revolver for joke ; 
 the report frightened him, and he's 
 176 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 never forgiven you or forgotten the 
 revolver. Wonderful memory some 
 of these animals have !' 
 
 ' Yes/ said Breddon^ ' but that 
 guess won't do. I have never, in- 
 tentionally or by chance, given the 
 " Devil " any reason for his enmity. 
 So far as I know he has never heard 
 a firearm, and certainly he has never 
 heard one since I made his acquaint- 
 ance. Somebody may have scared 
 him before, and I'm inclined to 
 think that soixiebody did, for there 
 can be no doubt that the brute 
 knows all that a cat need know 
 about a revolver, and that he's 
 scared of it. 
 
 ' The first time we met was almost 
 in darkness. I'd got some cases 
 that I was particular about, and the 
 captain had said I could go down to 
 look after them. Well, this beast 
 suddenly came out of a lump of 
 black and flew at me. I didn't even 
 recognise that it was a cat, because 
 he's so mighty big. I fetched him 
 a clip on the side of the head that 
 177 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 knocked him oflP, and whipped out 
 ray ii'on. He was away in a streak. 
 He knew. And I've had plenty of 
 proof since that he knows. He'd 
 bite me now if he had the chance^ 
 but he understands that he hasn't 
 got the chance. I'm often half in- 
 clined to take him on plain — shoot- 
 ing barred — and to feel my own 
 hands breaking his damned neck !' 
 
 '^Really^ old man^ really !' said the 
 Archdeacon in perfunctory protest, 
 as he rose and mixed himself another 
 drink. 
 
 ' Sorry to use strong language, 
 'but I don't love that cat, you know.' 
 
 The Archdeacon expressed his 
 surprise that in that case Breddon 
 did not get rid of the brute. 
 
 ' You come across him on board 
 ship and he flies at you. You save 
 his life, give hira board and lodging, 
 and he still hates you so much that 
 he won't let you touch him, and you 
 are no fonder of him than he is of 
 you. Why don't you part company ?' 
 
 ^As for his board, I've rarely 
 178 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 known him to eat anything except 
 his own kill. He goes out hunting 
 every night. I keep him simply 
 and solely because I'm afraid of 
 him. As long as I can keep him I 
 know my nerves are all right. If I 
 let my funk of him make any differ- 
 ence — well, I shouldn't be much 
 good in a Central African forest. 
 At first I had some idea of taming 
 him — and;, besides, there was a queer 
 coincidence.' 
 
 He rose and opened the window, 
 and Gray Devil slowly slunk up to 
 it. He paused a few monments on 
 the window-sill and then suddenly 
 sprang and vanished. 
 
 'What was the coincidence?' 
 ' What do you think of that ?' 
 Breddon handed the Archdeacon 
 a figure of a cat which he had taken 
 from the mantelpiece. It was a 
 little thing about three inches high. 
 In colour, in the small head, enor- 
 mous feet, and curiously human eyes, 
 it seemed an exact reproduction of 
 Gray Devil. 
 
 179 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 ' A perfect likeness. How did 
 you get it made ?' 
 
 ' I got the likeness before I got 
 the original. A little Jew dealer 
 sold it me the night before I left 
 for England. He thought it was 
 Egyptian, and described it as an 
 idol. Anyhow, it was a niceish piece 
 of jade.' 
 
 ' I always thought jade was bright 
 green.' 
 
 ' It may be — or white — or brown. 
 It varies. I don't think there can 
 be any doubt that this little figure 
 is old, though I doubt if it's Egyp- 
 tian.' 
 
 Breddon put it back in its place. 
 
 ' By the way, that same night the 
 little Jew came to try and buy it 
 back again. He offered me tAvice 
 what I had given for it. I said he 
 must have found somebody who 
 was pretty keen on it. I asked if it 
 was a collector. The Jew thought 
 not ; said it was a coloured gentle- 
 man. Well, that finished it. I 
 "wasn't going to do anything to 
 180 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 oblige a nigger. The Jew pleaded 
 that it was a particularly fine buck- 
 nigger, with mountains of money, 
 who'd been tracking the thing for 
 years, and hinted at all manner of 
 mumbo-jumbo business — to scare 
 me, I suppose. However, I wouldn't 
 listen, and kicked him out. Then 
 came the coincidence. Having 
 bought the likeness, next day I 
 found the living original. Rum, 
 wasn't it ?' 
 
 At this moment the clock struck, 
 and the Archdeacon recognised with 
 horror that it was very, very much 
 past the time when respectable 
 Archdeacons should be in bed and 
 asleep. He rose and said good- 
 night, observing that he'd like to 
 hear more about it on the morrow. 
 
 This was extremely unfortunate, 
 for it will be seen it is just at this 
 part of the story that one wants full 
 details, and on the morrow it became 
 impossible to elicit them. 
 
 Before leaving the library Bred- 
 don closed the window, and the 
 ]81 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 Archdeacon asked how ' Mr. Gray/ 
 as he called him, would get back. 
 
 'Very likely he's back already. 
 He's got a special window in the 
 kitchen, made on purpose, just big 
 enough to let him get in and out 
 as he likes.' 
 
 ' But don't other cats get in, too ?' 
 
 ' No,' said Breddon. ' Other cats 
 avoid Gray Devil.' 
 
 The Archdeacon found himself 
 unaccountably nervous when he 
 got to his room. He owned to me 
 that he had to satisfy himself that 
 there was no one concealed under 
 the bed or in the Avardrobe. How- 
 ever, he got into bed, and after a 
 little while fell into a deep sleep ; 
 his fire was burning brightly, and 
 the room was quite light. 
 
 Shortly after four he was awak- 
 ened by a loud scream. Still sleepy, 
 he did not for the moment locate 
 the sound, thinking that it must 
 have come from the street outside. 
 But almost immediately afterwards 
 he heard the report of a revolver fired 
 182 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 twice in quick succession, and then, 
 after a short pause, a third time. 
 
 The Archdeacon was terribly 
 frightened. He did not know 
 what had happened, and thought of 
 armed burglars. For a time — he 
 did not think it could have been 
 more than a minute — fear held him 
 motionless. Then with an effort he 
 rose, lit the gas, and hurried on his 
 clothes. As he was dressing, he 
 heard a step down the passage and 
 a knock at his door. 
 
 He opened it, and found Breddon's 
 servant. The man had put on a 
 blue overcoat over his night-things, 
 and wore slippers. He was shiver- 
 ing with cold and terror. 
 
 ' Oh, my God, sir !' he exclaimed, 
 ' Mr. Breddon's shot himself. Would 
 you come, sir.^' 
 
 The Archdeacon followed the 
 man to Breddon's bedroom. The 
 smoke still hung thickly in the 
 room. A mirror had been smashed, 
 and lay in fragments on the floor. 
 On the bed, with his back to the 
 183 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 Archdeacon, lay Breddon, dead. 
 His right hand still grasped the 
 revolver, and there was a blackened 
 wound behind the right ear. 
 
 When the Archdeacon came round 
 to look at the face he turned faint, 
 and the servant took him out into 
 the library and gave him brandy, 
 the glasses and decanters still stand- 
 ing there. Breddon's face certainly 
 had looked very ghastly ; it had 
 been scratched, torn and bitten ; one 
 eye was gone, and the whole face 
 was covered with blood. 
 
 ' Do you think it was that brute 
 did it ?' 
 
 ' Sure of it, sir ; sprang on his face 
 while he was asleep. I knew it 
 would happen one of these nights. 
 He knew it too ; always slept with 
 the revolver by his side. He fired 
 twice at the brute, but couldn't see 
 for the blood. Then he killed him- 
 self 
 
 It seemed likely enough, with his 
 e3'esight gone, horribly mauled, in 
 an agony of pain, possibly believing 
 184. 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 that he was saving himself from a 
 death still more horrible, Breddon 
 might very well have turned the 
 weapon on himself. 
 
 ' What do we do now ?' the man 
 asked. 
 
 ' We must get a doctor and fetch 
 the police at once. Come on.' 
 
 As they turned the corner of the 
 passage, they saw that the door com- 
 municating Avith the staircase was 
 open. 
 
 ' Did you open that door }' asked 
 the Archdeacon. 
 
 ' No/ said the man, aghast. 
 
 ' Then who did ?' 
 
 ' Don't know, sir. Looks as if we 
 weren't at the end of this yet.' 
 
 They passed down the stairs to- 
 gether, and found the street-door 
 also ajar. On the pavement outside 
 lay a policeman slowly recovering 
 consciousness. Breddon's man took 
 the policeman's whistle and blew it. 
 A passing hansom, going back to 
 the mews, slowed up ; the cab was 
 sent to fetch a doctor, and commu- 
 185 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 nication with the police-station 
 rapidly followed. 
 
 The injured policeman told a 
 curious story. He was passing the 
 house when he heard shots fired. 
 Almost immediately afterwards he 
 heard the bolts of the front-door 
 being drawn^ and stepped back into 
 the neighbouring doorway. The 
 front-door opened, and a negro 
 emerged clad in a gray tweed suit 
 with a gray overcoat. The police- 
 man jumped out, and without a 
 second's hesitation the black man 
 felled him. ' It was all done before 
 you could think/ was the police- 
 man's phrase. 
 
 ' What kind of negro ?' asked the 
 Archdeacon. 
 
 'A big man — stood over six foot, 
 and black as coal. He never waited 
 to be challenged ; the moment he 
 knew that he was seen he hit out.' 
 
 The policeman was not a very 
 intelligent fellow, and there was 
 little more to be got out of him. 
 He had heard the shots, seen the 
 street-door open and the man in 
 186 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 gray appear, and had been felled by 
 a lightning blow before he had time 
 to do anything. 
 
 The doctor, a plain, mattei*-of- 
 fact little man, had no hesitation in 
 saying that Breddon was dead, and 
 must have died almost immediately. 
 After the injm-ies received, respira- 
 tion and heart-action must have 
 ceased at once. He was explaining 
 something which oozed from the 
 dead man's ear, when the Arch- 
 deacon could stand it no longer, and 
 staggered out into the library. 
 There he found Breddon's sei'vant, 
 still in the blue overcoat, explaining 
 to a policeman with a notebook that 
 as far as he knew nothing was miss- 
 ing except a jade image or idol of 
 a cat which formerly stood on the 
 mantelpiece. 
 
 The cat known as ' Gray Devil ' 
 was also missing, and, although a 
 description of it was circulated in 
 the public press, nothing was ever 
 heard of it again. But gray fur was 
 found in the clenched left hand of 
 the dead man. 
 
 187 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 The inquest resulted in the cus- 
 tomary verdict, and brought to light 
 no new facts. But it may be as 
 well to give what the police theory 
 of the case was. According to the 
 police the suicide took place much 
 as Breddon's servant had supposed. 
 Mad with pain and unable to bear 
 the thought of his awful mutilation, 
 Breddon had shot himself. 
 
 The story of the jade image, as 
 far as it was known, was told at the 
 inquest. The police held that this 
 image was an idol, that some un- 
 civilized tribe was much perturbed 
 by the theft of it, and was ready to 
 pay an enormously high price for its 
 recovery. The negro was assumed 
 to be aware of this, and to have 
 determined to obtain possession of 
 the idol by fair means or foul. Fair 
 means failing, it was suggested that 
 the negro followed Breddon to 
 England, tracked him out, and on 
 the night in question found some 
 means to conceal himself in Bred- 
 don's flat. There it was assumed 
 that he fell asleep, was awakened 
 188 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 by the screams and the sound of the 
 firing, and, being scared, caught up 
 the jade image and made off. Real- 
 izing that the shots would have 
 been heard outside, and that his de- 
 parture at that moment would be 
 considered extremely suspicious, he 
 was ready as he opened the street- 
 door to fell the first man that he 
 saw. The temporary unconscious- 
 ness of the policeman gave him 
 time to get away. 
 
 The theory sounds at first sight 
 like the only possible theory. When 
 the Archdeacon first told me the 
 storj^ I tried to find out indirectly 
 whether he accepted it. Finding 
 him rather disposed to fence with 
 my hints and suggestions, I put the 
 question to him plainly and bluntly : 
 
 ' Do you believe in the police 
 theory ?' 
 
 He hesitated, and then answered 
 with complete frankness : 
 
 * No, most emphatically not.' 
 
 ' Why ?' I asked ; and he went 
 over the evidence with me. 
 
 ' In the first place, I do not believe 
 189 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 that Breddorij in the ordinary sense, 
 committed suicide. No amount 
 of physical pain would have made 
 him even think of it. He had un- 
 ending pluck. He would have 
 taken the facial disfigurement and 
 loss of sight as the chances of war, 
 and would have done the best that 
 could be done by a man with such 
 awful disabilities. One must admit 
 that he fired the fatal shot — the 
 medical evidence on that point is 
 too strong to be gainsaid — but he 
 fired it under circumstances of 
 supernatural horror of which we, 
 thank God ! know nothing.' 
 
 ' I'm naturally slow to admit 
 supernatural explanation.' 
 
 'Well, let's go on. What's this 
 mysterious tribe the police talk 
 about .'' I want to know where it 
 lives and what its name is. It's 
 wealthy enough to offer a huge 
 reward ; it must be of some impor- 
 tance. The negro managed to get 
 in and secrete himself. How } 
 Where ? I know the flat, and that 
 theory won't do. We don't even 
 190 
 
-^"f^Wf 
 
 THE GRAY CAT 
 
 know that it was the negro who took 
 that httle image, though I believe 
 it was. Anyhow, how did the negro 
 get away at that hour of the morn- 
 ing absolutely unobserved ? Negroes 
 are not so common in London that 
 they can walk about without being 
 noticed ; yet not one trace of him 
 was ever found, and equally ixiysteri- 
 ous is the disappearance of the Gray 
 Cat. It was such an extraordinary 
 brute, and the description of it was 
 so widely circulated that it would 
 have seemed almost certain we 
 should hear of it again. Well, we've 
 not heard.' 
 
 We discussed the police theory 
 for some little time, and something 
 which he happened to say led me 
 to exclaim : 
 
 ' Really ! Do you mean to say that 
 the Gray Cat actually was the 
 negro ?' 
 
 ' No,' he replied, ' not exactly 
 that, but something near it. Cats 
 are strange animals, anyhow, 
 needn't remind you of their con- 
 nection with certain old religions 
 191 
 
THE GRAY CAT 
 
 or with that witchcraft in which 
 even in England to-day some still 
 believe, and not so long ago almost 
 all believed. I have never, by the 
 way, seen a good explanation of the 
 fact that there are people who can- 
 not bear to be in a room with a cat, 
 and are aware of its presence as if 
 by some mysterious extra sense. 
 Let me remind you of the belief 
 which undoubtedly exists both in 
 China and Japan, that evil spirits 
 may enter into certain of the lower 
 animals, the fox and badger especi- 
 ally. Every student of demonology 
 knows about these things. 
 
 ' But that idea of evil spirits tak- 
 ing possession of cats or foxes is 
 surely a heathen superstition which 
 you cannot hold.' 
 
 ' Well, I have read of the evil 
 spirits that entered into the swine. 
 Think it over, and keep an open 
 mind.' 
 
 THE END 
 
.grlS 
 
. mmrnnmi m- 
 
m