Maloney listened as
though he had been struck. "You puzzle me utterly," he said, sitting up closer and staring at him. "Perhaps," replied the other, "but if you'll listen to me for a few
moments you may be less puzzled at the end--or more. It depends how much
you know. Let me go further and say that you have underestimated, or
miscalculated, the effect of this primitive wild life upon all of you." "In what way?" asked the clergyman, bristling a trifle. "It is strong medicine for any town-dweller, and for some of you it has
been too strong. One of you has gone wild." He uttered these last words
with great emphasis. "Gone savage," he added, looking from one to the other. Neither of us found anything to reply. "To say that the brute has awakened in a man is not a mere metaphor
always," he went on presently. "Of course not!" "But, in the sense I mean, may have a very literal and terrible
significance," pursued Dr. Silence. "Ancient instincts that no one
dreamed of, least of all their possessor, may leap forth--"

"Atavism can hardly explain a roaming animal with teeth and claws and
sanguinary instincts," interrupted Maloney with impatience. "The term is of your own choice," continued the doctor equably, "not
mine, and it is a good example of a word that indicates a result while
it conceals the process; but the explanation of this beast that haunts
your island and attacks your daughter is of far deeper significance than
mere atavistic tendencies, or throwing back to animal origin, which I
suppose is the thought in your mind." "You spoke just now of lycanthropy," said Maloney, looking bewildered
and anxious to keep to plain facts evidently; "I think I have come
across the word, but really--really--it can have no actual significance
to-day, can it? These superstitions of mediaeval times can hardly--"

He looked round at me with his jolly red face, and the expression of
astonishment and dismay on it would have made me shout with laughter at
any other time. Laughter, however, was never farther from my mind than
at this moment when I listened to Dr. Silence as he carefully suggested
to the clergyman the very explanation that had gradually been forcing
itself upon my own mind. "However mediaeval ideas may have exaggerated the idea is not of much
importance to us now," he said quietly, "when we are face to face with a
modern example of what, I take it, has always been a profound fact. For
the moment let us leave the name of any one in particular out of the
matter and consider certain possibilities." We all agreed with that at any rate. There was no need to speak of
Sangree, or of any one else, until we knew a little more. "The fundamental fact in this most curious case," he went on, "is that
the 'Double' of a man--"

"You mean the astral body? I've heard of that, of course," broke in
Maloney with a snort of triumph. "No doubt," said the other, smiling, "no doubt you have;--that this
Double, or fluidic body of a man, as I was saying, has the power under
certain conditions of projecting itself and becoming visible to others. Certain training will accomplish this, and certain drugs likewise;
illnesses, too, that ravage the body may produce temporarily the result
that death produces permanently, and let loose this counterpart of a
human being and render it visible to the sight of others. "Every one, of course, knows this more or less to-day; but it is not so
generally known, and probably believed by none who have not witnessed
it, that this fluidic body can, under certain conditions, assume other
forms than human, and that such other forms may be determined by the
dominating thought and wish of the owner. For this Double, or astral
body as you call it, is really the seat of the passions, emotions and
desires in the psychical economy. It is the Passion Body; and, in
projecting itself, it can often assume a form that gives expression to
the overmastering desire that moulds it; for it is composed of such
tenuous matter that it lends itself readily to the moulding by thought
and wish." "I follow you perfectly," said Maloney, looking as if he would much
rather be chopping firewood elsewhere and singing. "And there are some persons so constituted," the doctor went on with
increasing seriousness, "that the fluid body in them is but loosely
associated with the physical, persons of poor health as a rule, yet
often of strong desires and passions; and in these persons it is easy
for the Double to dissociate itself during deep sleep from their system,
and, driven forth by some consuming desire, to assume an animal form and
seek the fulfilment of that desire." There, in broad daylight, I saw Maloney deliberately creep closer to the
fire and heap the wood on. We gathered in to the heat, and to each
other, and listened to Dr. Silence's voice as it mingled with the swish
and whirr of the wind about us, and the falling of the little waves. "For instance, to take a concrete example," he resumed; "suppose some
young man, with the delicate constitution I have spoken of, forms an
overpowering attachment to a young woman, yet perceives that it is not
welcomed, and is man enough to repress its outward manifestations. In
such a case, supposing his Double be easily projected, the very
repression of his love in the daytime would add to the intense force of
his desire when released in deep sleep from the control of his will,
and his fluidic body might issue forth in monstrous or animal shape and
become actually visible to others. And, if his devotion were dog-like in
its fidelity, yet concealing the fires of a fierce passion beneath, it
might well assume the form of a creature that seemed to be half dog,
half wolf--"

"A werewolf, you mean?" cried Maloney, pale to the lips as he listened. John Silence held up a restraining hand. "A werewolf," he said, "is a
true psychical fact of profound significance, however absurdly it may
have been exaggerated by the imaginations of a superstitious peasantry
in the days of unenlightenment, for a werewolf is nothing but the
savage, and possibly sanguinary, instincts of a passionate man scouring
the world in his fluidic body, his passion body, his body of desire. As
in the case at hand, he may not know it--"

"It is not necessarily deliberate, then?" Maloney put in quickly, with
relief.

" --It is hardly ever deliberate. It is the desires released in sleep
from the control of the will finding a vent. In all savage races it has
been recognised and dreaded, this phenomenon styled 'Wehr Wolf,' but
to-day it is rare. And it is becoming rarer still, for the world grows
tame and civilised, emotions have become refined, desires lukewarm, and
few men have savagery enough left in them to generate impulses of such
intense force, and certainly not to project them in animal form." "By Gad!"