“You spoke just now of lycanthropy,” said Maloney, looking bewildered and anxious to keep to plain facts evidently; “I think I have come across the word, but really—­really—­it can have no actual significance to-day, can it?  These superstitions of mediaeval times can hardly—­”

He looked round at me with his jolly red face, and the expression of astonishment and dismay on it would have made me shout with laughter at any other time.  Laughter, however, was never farther from my mind than at this moment when I listened to Dr. Silence as he carefully suggested to the clergyman the very explanation that had gradually been forcing itself upon my own mind.

“However mediaeval ideas may have exaggerated the idea is not of much importance to us now,” he said quietly, “when we are face to face with a modern example of what, I take it, has always been a profound fact.  For the moment let us leave the name of any one in particular out of the matter and consider certain possibilities.”

We all agreed with that at any rate.  There was no need to speak of Sangree, or of any one else, until we knew a little more.

“The fundamental fact in this most curious case,” he went on, “is that the ‘Double’ of a man—­”

“You mean the astral body?  I’ve heard of that, of course,” broke in Maloney with a snort of triumph.

“No doubt,” said the other, smiling, “no doubt you have;—­that this Double, or fluidic body of a man, as I was saying, has the power under certain conditions of projecting itself and becoming visible to others.  Certain training will accomplish this, and certain drugs likewise; illnesses, too, that ravage the body may produce temporarily the result that death produces permanently, and let loose this counterpart of a human being and render it visible to the sight of others.

“Every one, of course, knows this more or less to-day; but it is not so generally known, and probably believed by none who have not witnessed it, that this fluidic body can, under certain conditions, assume other forms than human, and that such other forms may be determined by the dominating thought and wish of the owner.  For this Double, or astral body as you call it, is really the seat of the passions, emotions and desires in the psychical economy.  It is the Passion Body; and, in projecting itself, it can often assume a form that gives expression to the overmastering desire that moulds it; for it is composed of such tenuous matter that it lends itself readily to the moulding by thought and wish.”

“I follow you perfectly,” said Maloney, looking as if he would much rather be chopping firewood elsewhere and singing.

“And there are some persons so constituted,” the doctor went on with increasing seriousness, “that the fluid body in them is but loosely associated with the physical, persons of poor health as a rule, yet often of strong desires and passions; and in these persons it is easy for the Double to dissociate itself during deep sleep from their system, and, driven forth by some consuming desire, to assume an animal form and seek the fulfilment of that desire.”