II

MR. CLARKE'S MEMOIRS

Mr. Clarke, the gentleman chosen by Dr. Raymond to witness the strange
experiment of the god Pan, was a person in whose character caution and
curiosity were oddly mingled; in his sober moments he thought of the
unusual and the eccentric with undisguised aversion, and yet, deep in
his heart, there was a wide-eyed inquisitiveness with respect to all the
more recondite and esoteric elements in the nature of men. The latter
tendency had prevailed when he accepted Raymond's invitation, for though
his considered judgment had always repudiated the doctor's theories as
the wildest nonsense, yet he secretly hugged a belief in fantasy, and
would have rejoiced to see that belief confirmed. The horrors that he
witnessed in the dreary laboratory were to a certain extent salutary; he
was conscious of being involved in an affair not altogether reputable,
and for many years afterwards he clung bravely to the commonplace, and
rejected all occasions of occult investigation. Indeed, on some
hom[oe]opathic principle, he for some time attended the seances of
distinguished mediums, hoping that the clumsy tricks of these gentlemen
would make him altogether disgusted with mysticism of every kind, but
the remedy, though caustic, was not efficacious. Clarke knew that he
still pined for the unseen, and little by little, the old passion began
to reassert itself, as the face of Mary, shuddering and convulsed with
an unknowable terror, faded slowly from his memory. Occupied all day in
pursuits both serious and lucrative, the temptation to relax in the
evening was too great, especially in the winter months, when the fire
cast a warm glow over his snug bachelor apartment, and a bottle of some
choice claret stood ready by his elbow. His dinner digested, he would
make a brief pretence of reading the evening paper, but the mere
catalogue of news soon palled upon him, and Clarke would find himself
casting glances of warm desire in the direction of an old Japanese
bureau, which stood at a pleasant distance from the hearth. Like a boy
before a jam-closet, for a few minutes he would hover indecisive, but
lust always prevailed, and Clarke ended by drawing up his chair,
lighting a candle, and sitting down before the bureau. Its pigeonholes
and drawers teemed with documents on the most morbid subjects, and in
the well reposed a large manuscript volume, in which he had painfully
entered the gems of his collection. Clarke had a fine contempt for
published literature; the most ghostly story ceased to interest him if
it happened to be printed; his sole pleasure was in the reading,
compiling, and rearranging what he called his 'Memoirs to prove the
Existence of the Devil,' and engaged in this pursuit the evening seemed
to fly and the night appeared too short. On one particular evening, an ugly December night, black with fog, and
raw with frost, Clarke hurried over his dinner, and scarcely deigned to
observe his customary ritual of taking up the paper and laying it down
again. He paced two or three times up and down the room, and opened the
bureau, stood still a moment, and sat down. He leant back, absorbed in
one of those dreams to which he was subject, and at length drew out his
book, and opened it at the last entry. There were three or four pages
densely covered with Clarke's round, set penmanship, and at the
beginning he had written in a somewhat larger hand:

    Singular Narrative told me by my Friend, Dr. Phillips. He assures me
    that all the facts related therein are strictly and wholly True, but
    refuses to give either the Surnames of the Persons concerned, or the
    Place where these Extraordinary Events occurred. Mr. Clarke began to read over the account for the tenth time, glancing
now and then at the pencil notes he had made when it was told him by his
friend. It was one of his humours to pride himself on a certain literary
ability; he thought well of his style, and took pains in arranging the
circumstances in dramatic order. He read the following story:--

The persons concerned in this statement are Helen V., who, if she is
still alive, must now be a woman of twenty-three, Rachel M., since
deceased, who was a year younger than the above, and Trevor W., an
imbecile, aged eighteen. These persons were at the period of the story
inhabitants of a village on the borders of Wales, a place of some
importance in the time of the Roman occupation, but now a scattered
hamlet, of not more than five hundred souls. It is situated on rising
ground, about six miles from the sea, and is sheltered by a large and
picturesque forest. Some eleven years ago, Helen V. came to the village under rather
peculiar circumstances. It is understood that she, being an orphan, was
adopted in her infancy by a distant relative, who brought her up in his
own house till she was twelve years old. Thinking, however, that it
would be better for the child to have playmates of her own age, he
advertised in several local papers for a good home in a comfortable
farmhouse for a girl of twelve, and this advertisement was answered by
Mr. R., a well-to-do farmer in the above-mentioned village. His
references proving satisfactory, the gentleman sent his adopted daughter
to Mr. R., with a letter, in which he stipulated that the girl should
have a room to herself, and stated that her guardians need be at no
trouble in the matter of education, as she was already sufficiently
educated for the position in life which she would occupy. In fact, Mr.
R. was given to understand that the girl was to be allowed to find her
own occupations, and to spend her time almost as she liked. Mr. R. duly
met her at the nearest station, a town some seven miles away from his
house, and seems to have remarked nothing extraordinary about the
child, except that she was reticent as to her former life and her
adopted father. She was, however, of a very different type from the
inhabitants of the village; her skin was a pale, clear olive, and her
features were strongly marked, and of a somewhat foreign character. She
appears to have settled down easily enough into farmhouse life, and
became a favourite with the children, who sometimes went with her on her
rambles in the forest, for this was her amusement. Mr. R. states that he
has known her go out by herself directly after their early breakfast,
and not return till after dusk, and that, feeling uneasy at a young girl
being out alone for so many hours, he communicated with her adopted
father, who replied in a brief note that Helen must do as she chose. In
the winter, when the forest paths are impassable, she spent most of her
time in her bedroom, where she slept alone, according to the
instructions of her relative. It was on one of these expeditions to the
forest that the first of the singular incidents with which this girl is
connected occurred, the date being about a year after her arrival at the
village.