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, but lust always
prevailed, and Clarke ended by drawing up his chair, lighting a
candle, and sitting down before the bureau. Its pigeon-holes
and drawers teemed with documents on the most morbid subjects,