Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was someone
behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the
wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the
obvious value of the collection he had acquired. And now, as I said, he
was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic’s treasures, in
which every moment revealed something more charming. “Bless Canon Alberic!” said Dennistoun, who had an inveterate habit of
talking to himself. “I wonder where he is now? Dear me! I wish that
landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one
feel as if there was someone dead in the house. Half a pipe more, did
you say? I think perhaps you are right. I wonder what that crucifix is
that the young woman insisted on giving me? Last century, I suppose. Yes, probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one’s
neck—just too heavy. Most likely her father has been wearing it for
years. I think I might give it a clean up before I put it away.”

He had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his
attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his
left elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his
brain with their own incalculable quickness. “A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A
large spider? I trust to goodness not—no. Good God! a hand like the
hand in that picture!”

In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin,
covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse
black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from
the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, grey,
horny and wrinkled. He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at
his heart. The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising
to a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his
scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair
covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin—what can I call
it?—shallow, like a beast’s; teeth showed behind the black lips; there
was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils
showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy
life which shone there, were the most horrifying features in the whole
vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them—intelligence beyond
that of a beast, below that of a man. The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest
physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do? What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said,
but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver
crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part
of the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in
hideous pain. Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in,
saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed
out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him
that night, and his two friends were at St Bertrand by nine o’clock
next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost
himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though
not until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan. Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretence, and
had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the
landlady. He showed no surprise. “It is he—it is he! I have seen him myself,” was his only comment; and
to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: “Deux fois je l’ai
vu; mille fois je l’ai senti.” He would tell them nothing of the
provenance of the book, nor any details of his experiences. “I shall
soon sleep, and my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me?” he
said. [2]

 [2] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St
 Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father’s
 “obsession”. We shall never know what he or Canon Alberic de Mauléon suffered. At
the back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may
be supposed to throw light on the situation:

Contradictio Salomonis cum demonio nocturno. Albericus de Mauléone delineavit. V. Deus in adiutorium. Ps. Qui habitat. Sancte Bertrande, demoniorum effugator, intercede pro me miserrimo. Primum uidi nocte 12(mi) Dec. 1694: uidebo mox ultimum. Peccaui et
passus sum, plura adhuc passurus. Dec. 29, 1701. [3]

 [3] _i.e._, The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by
 Alberic de Mauléon. _Versicle_. O Lord, make haste to help me. _Psalm_. Whoso dwelleth xci. Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most
    unhappy. I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall
    see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more
    to suffer yet. Dec. 29, 1701. The “Gallia Christiana” gives the date of the Canon’s death as
    December 31, 1701, “in bed, of a sudden seizure”. Details of this
    kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani. I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun’s view of the events
I have narrated. He quoted to me once a text from Ecclesiasticus: “Some
spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay
on sore strokes.” On another occasion he said: “Isaiah was a very
sensible man; doesn’t he say something about night monsters living in
the ruins of Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present.”

Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with
it. We had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic’s tomb. It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large
wig and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw
Dennistoun talking for some time with the Vicar of St Bertrand’s, and
as we drove away he said to me: “I hope it isn’t wrong: you know I am a
Presbyterian—but I—I believe there will be ‘saying of Mass and singing
of dirges’ for Alberic de Mauléon’s rest.” Then he added, with a touch
of the Northern British in his tone, “I had no notion they came so
dear.”

The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was
photographed and then burnt by Dennistoun on the day when he left
Comminges on the occasion of his first visit. LOST HEARTS


It was, as far as I can ascertain, in September of the year 1811 that a
post-chaise drew up before the door of Aswarby Hall, in the heart of
Lincolnshire. The little boy who was the only passenger in the chaise,
and who jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with the
keenest curiosity during the short interval that elapsed between the
ringing of the bell and the opening of the hall door.