upon a huge receptacle that stood on the table nearest to the furnace.  It was covered with a white cloth.  He took it off.  The vessel was about four feet high, round, and shaped somewhat like a washing tub, but it was made of glass more than an inch thick.  In it a spherical mass, a little larger than a football, of a peculiar, livid colour.  The surface was smooth, but rather coarsely grained, and over it ran a dense system of blood-vessels.  It reminded the two medical men of those huge tumours which are preserved in spirit in hospital museums.  Susie looked at it with an incomprehensible disgust.  Suddenly she gave a cry.

‘Good God, it’s moving!’

Arthur put his hand on her arm quickly to quieten her and bent down with irresistible curiosity.  They saw that it was a mass of flesh unlike that of any human being; and it pulsated regularly.  The movement was quite distinct, up and down, like the delicate heaving of a woman’s breast when she is asleep.  Arthur touched the thing with one finger and it shrank slightly.

‘Its quite warm,’ he said.

He turned it over, and it remained in the position in which he had placed it, as if there were neither top nor bottom to it.  But they could see now, irregularly placed on one side, a few short hairs.  They were just like human hairs.

‘Is it alive?’ whispered Susie, struck with horror and amazement.

‘Yes!’

Arthur seemed fascinated.  He could not take his eyes off the loathsome thing.  He watched it slowly heave with even motion.

‘What can it mean?’ he asked.

He looked at Dr Porhoet with pale startled face.  A thought was coming to him, but a thought so unnatural, extravagant, and terrible that he pushed it from him with a movement of both hands, as though it were a material thing.  Then all three turned around abruptly with a start, for they heard again the wild gibbering which had first shocked their ears.  In the wonder of this revolting object they had forgotten all the rest.  The sound seemed extraordinarily near, and Susie drew back instinctively, for it appeared to come from her very side.

‘There’s nothing here,’ said Arthur.  ‘It must be in the next room.’

‘Oh, Arthur, let us go,’ cried Susie.  ’I’m afraid to see what may be in store for us.  It is nothing to us; and what we see may poison our sleep for ever.’

She looked appealingly at Dr Porhoet.  He was white and anxious.  The heat of that place had made the sweat break out on his forehead.

‘I have seen enough.  I want to see no more,’ he said.

‘Then you may go, both of you,’ answered Arthur.  ’I do not wish to force you to see anything.  But I shall go on.  Whatever it is, I wish to find out.’

’But Haddo?  Supposing he is there, waiting?  Perhaps you are only walking into a trap that he has set for you.’

‘I am convinced that Haddo is dead.’