As Stephen stood by the fence
of the grounds, and looked out into the park, he felt as if an endless
procession of unseen people were sweeping past him on the wind, borne
on resistlessly and aimlessly, vainly striving to stop themselves, to
catch at something that might arrest their flight and bring them once
again into contact with the living world of which they had formed a
part. After luncheon that day Mr Abney said:

“Stephen, my boy, do you think you could manage to come to me tonight
as late as eleven o’clock in my study? I shall be busy until that time,
and I wish to show you something connected with your future life which
it is most important that you should know. You are not to mention this
matter to Mrs Bunch nor to anyone else in the house; and you had better
go to your room at the usual time.”

Here was a new excitement added to life: Stephen eagerly grasped at the
opportunity of sitting up till eleven o’clock. He looked in at the
library door on his way upstairs that evening, and saw a brazier, which
he had often noticed in the corner of the room, moved out before the
fire; an old silver-gilt cup stood on the table, filled with red wine,
and some written sheets of paper lay near it. Mr Abney was sprinkling
some incense on the brazier from a round silver box as Stephen passed,
but did not seem to notice his step. The wind had fallen, and there was a still night and a full moon. At
about ten o’clock Stephen was standing at the open window of his
bedroom, looking out over the country. Still as the night was, the
mysterious population of the distant moon-lit woods was not yet lulled
to rest. From time to time strange cries as of lost and despairing
wanderers sounded from across the mere. They might be the notes of owls
or water-birds, yet they did not quite resemble either sound. Were not
they coming nearer? Now they sounded from the nearer side of the water,
and in a few moments they seemed to be floating about among the
shrubberies. Then they ceased; but just as Stephen was thinking of
shutting the window and resuming his reading of _Robinson Crusoe_, he
caught sight of two figures standing on the gravelled terrace that ran
along the garden side of the Hall—the figures of a boy and girl, as it
seemed; they stood side by side, looking up at the windows. Something
in the form of the girl recalled irresistibly his dream of the figure
in the bath. The boy inspired him with more acute fear. Whilst the girl stood still, half smiling, with her hands clasped over
her heart, the boy, a thin shape, with black hair and ragged clothing,
raised his arms in the air with an appearance of menace and of
unappeasable hunger and longing. The moon shone upon his almost
transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long
and that the light shone through them. As he stood with his arms thus
raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle. On the left side of his
chest there opened a black and gaping rent; and there fell upon
Stephen’s brain, rather than upon his ear, the impression of one of
those hungry and desolate cries that he had heard resounding over the
woods of Aswarby all that evening. In another moment this dreadful pair
had moved swiftly and noiselessly over the dry gravel, and he saw them
no more. Inexpressibly frightened as he was, he determined to take his candle
and go down to Mr Abney’s study, for the hour appointed for their
meeting was near at hand. The study or library opened out of the
front-hall on one side, and Stephen, urged on by his terrors, did not
take long in getting there. To effect an entrance was not so easy. It
was not locked, he felt sure, for the key was on the outside of the
door as usual. His repeated knocks produced no answer. Mr Abney was
engaged: he was speaking. What! why did he try to cry out? and why was
the cry choked in his throat? Had he, too, seen the mysterious
children? But now everything was quiet, and the door yielded to
Stephen’s terrified and frantic pushing. On the table in Mr Abney’s study certain papers were found which
explained the situation to Stephen Elliott when he was of an age to
understand them. The most important sentences were as follows:

“It was a belief very strongly and generally held by the ancients—of
whose wisdom in these matters I have had such experience as induces me
to place confidence in their assertions—that by enacting certain
processes, which to us moderns have something of a barbaric complexion,
a very remarkable enlightenment of the spiritual faculties in man may
be attained: that, for example, by absorbing the personalities of a
certain number of his fellow-creatures, an individual may gain a
complete ascendancy over those orders of spiritual beings which control
the elemental forces of our universe. “It is recorded of Simon Magus that he was able to fly in the air, to
become invisible, or to assume any form he pleased, by the agency of
the soul of a boy whom, to use the libellous phrase employed by the
author of the _Clementine Recognitions_, he had ‘murdered’. I find it
set down, moreover, with considerable detail in the writings of Hermes
Trismegistus, that similar happy results may be produced by the
absorption of the hearts of not less than three human beings below the
age of twenty-one years. To the testing of the truth of this receipt I
have devoted the greater part of the last twenty years, selecting as
the _corpora vilia_ of my experiment such persons as could conveniently
be removed without occasioning a sensible gap in society. The first
step I effected by the removal of one Phoebe Stanley, a girl of gipsy
extraction, on March 24, 1792. The second, by the removal of a
wandering Italian lad, named Giovanni Paoli, on the night of March 23,
1805. The final ‘victim’—to employ a word repugnant in the highest
degree to my feelings—must be my cousin, Stephen Elliott. His day must
be this March 24, 1812. “The best means of effecting the required absorption is to remove the
heart from the _living_ subject, to reduce it to ashes, and to mingle
them with about a pint of some red wine, preferably port. The remains
of the first two subjects, at least, it will be well to conceal: a
disused bathroom or wine-cellar will be found convenient for such a
purpose. Some annoyance may be experienced from the psychic portion of
the subjects, which popular language dignifies with the name of ghosts. But the man of philosophic temperament—to whom alone the experiment is
appropriate—will be little prone to attach importance to the feeble
efforts of these beings to wreak their vengeance on him. I contemplate
with the liveliest satisfaction the enlarged and emancipated existence
which the experiment, if successful, will confer on me; not only
placing me beyond the reach of human justice (so-called), but
eliminating to a great extent the prospect of death itself.”

Mr Abney was found in his chair, his head thrown back, his face stamped
with an expression of rage, fright, and mortal pain.