He was looking
intently at the small pen-and-ink sketch of the woman's head; it had
evidently been drawn with great care, and by a true artist, for the
woman's soul looked out of the eyes, and the lips were parted with a
strange smile. Clarke gazed still at the face; it brought to his memory
one summer evening long ago; he saw again the long lovely valley, the
river winding between the hills, the meadows and the cornfields, the
dull red sun, and the cold white mist rising from the water. He heard a
voice speaking to him across the waves of many years, and saying,
'Clarke, Mary will see the God Pan!' and then he was standing in the
grim room beside the doctor, listening to the heavy ticking of the
clock, waiting and watching, watching the figure lying on the green
chair beneath the lamplight. Mary rose up, and he looked into her eyes,
and his heart grew cold within him. 'Who is this woman?' he said at last. His voice was dry and hoarse. 'That is the woman whom Herbert married.' Clarke looked again at the sketch; it was not Mary after all. There
certainly was Mary's face, but there was something else, something he
had not seen on Mary's features when the white-clad girl entered the
laboratory with the doctor, nor at her terrible awakening, nor when she
lay grinning on the bed. Whatever it was, the glance that came from
those eyes, the smile on the full lips, or the expression of the whole
face, Clarke shuddered before it in his inmost soul, and thought,
unconsciously, of Dr. Phillips's words, 'the most vivid presentment of
evil I have ever seen.' He turned the paper over mechanically in his
hand and glanced at the back. 'Good God! Clarke, what is the matter? You are as white as death.' Villiers had started wildly from his chair, as Clarke fell back with a
groan, and let the paper drop from his hands. 'I don't feel very well, Villiers, I am subject to these attacks. Pour
me out a little wine; thanks, that will do. I shall feel better in a few
minutes.' Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over as Clarke had
done. 'You saw that?' he said. 'That's how I identified it as being a portrait
of Herbert's wife, or I should say his widow. How do you feel now?' 'Better, thanks, it was only a passing faintness. I don't think I quite
catch your meaning. What did you say enabled you to identify the
picture?' 'This word--"Helen"--written on the back. Didn't I tell you her name was
Helen? Yes; Helen Vaughan.' Clarke groaned; there could be no shadow of doubt. 'Now, don't you agree with me,' said Villiers, 'that in the story I have
told you to-night, and in the part this woman plays in it, there are
some very strange points?' 'Yes, Villiers,' Clarke muttered, 'it is a strange story indeed; a
strange story indeed. You must give me time to think it over; I may be
able to help you or I may not. Must you be going now? Well, good-night,
Villiers, good-night. Come and see me in the course of a week.' V

THE LETTER OF ADVICE

'Do you know, Austin,' said Villiers, as the two friends were pacing
sedately along Piccadilly one pleasant morning in May, 'do you know I am
convinced that what you told me about Paul Street and the Herberts is a
mere episode in an extraordinary history? I may as well confess to you
that when I asked you about Herbert a few months ago I had just seen
him.' 'You had seen him? Where?' 'He begged of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable
plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history,
or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this--he had
been ruined by his wife.' 'In what manner?' 'He would not tell me; he would only say that she had destroyed him,
body and soul. The man is dead now.' 'And what has become of his wife?' 'Ah, that's what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner or
later. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man of
business, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd in
the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows
something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he
was evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked me
to come again in the course of a week. A few days later I received this
extraordinary letter.' Austin took the envelope, drew out the letter, and read it curiously. It
ran as follows:--

    'MY DEAR VILLIERS,--I have thought over the matter on which you
    consulted me the other night, and my advice to you is this. Throw
    the portrait into the fire, blot out the story from your mind. Never
    give it another thought, Villiers, or you will be sorry. You will
    think, no doubt, that I am in possession of some secret information,
    and to a certain extent that is the case. But I only know a little;
    I am like a traveller who has peered over an abyss, and has drawn
    back in terror. What I know is strange enough and horrible enough,
    but beyond my knowledge there are depths and horrors more frightful
    still, more incredible than any tale told of winter nights about the
    fire. I have resolved, and nothing shall shake that resolve, to
    explore no whit farther, and if you value your happiness you will
    make the same determination. 'Come and see me by all means; but we will talk on more cheerful
    topics than this.' Austin folded the letter methodically, and returned it to Villiers. 'It is certainly an extraordinary letter,' he said; 'what does he mean
by the portrait?' 'Ah! I forgot to tell you I have been to Paul Street and have made a
discovery.' Villiers told his story as he had told it to Clarke, and Austin listened
in silence. He seemed puzzled. 'How very curious that you should experience such an unpleasant
sensation in that room!' he said at length. 'I hardly gather that it was
a mere matter of the imagination; a feeling of repulsion, in short.' 'No, it was more physical than mental. It was as if I were inhaling at
every breath some deadly fume, which seemed to penetrate to every nerve
and bone and sinew of my body. I felt racked from head to foot, my eyes
began to grow dim; it was like the entrance of death.' 'Yes, yes, very strange, certainly. You see, your friend confesses that
there is some very black story connected with this woman. Did you notice
any particular emotion in him when you were telling your tale?' 'Yes, I did. He became very faint, but he assured me that it was a mere
passing attack to which he was subject.' 'Did you believe him?' 'I did at the time, but I don't now. He heard what I had to say with a
good deal of indifference, till I showed him the portrait. It was then
he was seized with the attack of which I spoke. He looked ghastly, I
assure you.' 'Then he must have seen the woman before. But there might be another
explanation; it might have been the name, and not the face, which was
familiar to him. What do you think?' 'I couldn't say.