The skin, and the
flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the
human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as
adamant, began to melt and dissolve. 'I knew that the body may be separated into its elements by external
agencies, but I should have refused to believe what I saw. For here
there was some internal force, of which I knew nothing, that caused
dissolution and change. 'Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated before my
eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from itself,
and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the beasts
whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to the
depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life, which
makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed. 'The light within the room had turned to blackness, not the darkness of
night, in which objects are seen dimly, for I could see clearly and
without difficulty. But it was the negation of light; objects were
presented to my eyes, if I may say so, without any medium, in such a
manner that if there had been a prism in the room I should have seen no
colours represented in it. 'I watched, and at last I saw nothing but a substance as jelly. Then the
ladder was ascended again ... [_here the MS. is illegible_] ... for one
instant I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will not
farther describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in ancient
sculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava, too foul
to be spoken of ... as a horrible and unspeakable shape, neither man nor
beast, was changed into human form, there came finally death. 'I who saw all this, not without great horror and loathing of soul, here
write my name, declaring all that I have set on this paper to be true. 'ROBERT MATHESON, Med. Dr.'

       *       *       *       *       *

... Such, Raymond, is the story of what I know and what I have seen. The
burden of it was too heavy for me to bear alone, and yet I could tell it
to none but you. Villiers, who was with me at the last, knows nothing of
that awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die, lay upon the
smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun and half in
shadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called and summoned those
companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we tread on, the
horror which we can but hint at, which we can only name under a figure. I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that resemblance, which struck
me as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw the portrait, which filled
the cup of terror at the end. What this can mean I dare not guess. I
know that what I saw perish was not Mary, and yet in the last agony
Mary's eyes looked into mine. Whether there be any one who can show the
last link in this chain of awful mystery, I do not know, but if there be
any one who can do this, you, Raymond, are the man. And if you know the
secret, it rests with you to tell it or not, as you please. I am writing this letter to you immediately on my getting back to town. I have been in the country for the last few days; perhaps you may be
able to guess in what part. While the horror and wonder of London was at
its height--for 'Mrs. Beaumont,' as I have told you, was well known in
society--I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips, giving some brief outline,
or rather hint, of what had happened, and asking him to tell me the name
of the village where the events he had related to me occurred. He gave
me the name, as he said with the less hesitation, because Rachel's
father and mother were dead, and the rest of the family had gone to a
relative in the State of Washington six months before. The parents, he
said, had undoubtedly died of grief and horror caused by the terrible
death of their daughter, and by what had gone before that death. On the
evening of the day on which I received Phillips's letter I was at
Caermaen, and standing beneath the mouldering Roman walls, white with
the winters of seventeen hundred years, I looked over the meadow where
once had stood the older temple of the 'God of the Deeps,' and saw a
house gleaming in the sunlight. It was the house where Helen had lived. I stayed at Caermaen for several days. The people of the place, I found,
knew little and had guessed less. Those whom I spoke to on the matter
seemed surprised that an antiquarian (as I professed myself to be)
should trouble about a village tragedy, of which they gave a very
commonplace version, and, as you may imagine, I told nothing of what I
knew. Most of my time was spent in the great wood that rises just above
the village and climbs the hillside, and goes down to the river in the
valley; such another long lovely valley, Raymond, as that on which we
looked one summer night, walking to and fro before your house. For many
an hour I strayed through the maze of the forest, turning now to right
and now to left, pacing slowly down long alleys of undergrowth, shadowy
and chill, even under the midday sun, and halting beneath great oaks;
lying on the short turf of a clearing where the faint sweet scent of
wild roses came to me on the wind and mixed with the heavy perfume of
the elder, whose mingled odour is like the odour of the room of the
dead, a vapour of incense and corruption. I stood at the edges of the
wood, gazing at all the pomp and procession of the foxgloves towering
amidst the bracken and shining red in the broad sunshine, and beyond
them into deep thickets of close undergrowth where springs boil up from
the rock and nourish the water-weeds, dank and evil. But in all my
wanderings I avoided one part of the wood; it was not till yesterday
that I climbed to the summit of the hill, and stood upon the ancient
Roman road that threads the highest ridge of the wood. Here they had
walked, Helen and Rachel, along this quiet causeway, upon the pavement
of green turf, shut in on either side by high banks of red earth, and
tall hedges of shining beech, and here I followed in their steps,
looking out, now and again, through partings in the boughs, and seeing
on one side the sweep of the wood stretching far to right and left, and
sinking into the broad level, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the land
over the sea. On the other side was the valley and the river and hill
following hill as wave on wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield, and
white houses gleaming, and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaks
in the north. And so at last I came to the place. The track went up a
gentle slope, and widened out into an open space with a wall of thick
undergrowth around it, and then, narrowing again, passed on into the
distance and the faint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant
summer glade Rachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? I
did not stay long there.