rieking to the floor.

Three days later Raymond took Clarke to Mary's bedside. She was lying
wide-awake, rolling her head from side to side, and grinning vacantly.

"Yes," said the doctor, still quite cool, "it is a great pity; she is a
hopeless idiot. However, it could not be helped; and, after all, she
has seen the Great God Pan."

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 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 homeopathic 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 unknown 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,