Can Such Things Be? or the Weird of the Beresfords

Preface: I cannot pretend to account for, or in any way attempt to explain, the extraordinary mystery of the following tale. I only try to tell the mere facts of a marvellous unearthly experience in all the same as here related, save that she who went through this great horror lived - though but for a brief week or two - and told the story of that terrible night. Many will, doubtless, assert that it must have been a dream, an hallucination, or the phantasma­goria of a diseased fancy; that either insanity, or the strange optical delusions and imaginations engendered by opiates when they fail as sleep inducers, must be the true solution of this weird problem. And possibly they may be right; but one or two unalterable, inexplicable facts remain.

The mysterious music was heard by others besides her to whom the ghastly manifestation was made; and, above all, the singular disappear­ance of the violin, its reappearance a year later, and its still more marvellous and weirdly-mystic vanishing at the moment of death, are inexplicable phenomena.

I think it necessary to say this little word of deprecation, as apology for offering to the world a tale almost too wild for belief-

---ARNOLD DYSART, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Professor of Modern Philosophy, Cambridge, June 17th, 1883

Contents:

· Part I. His Violin

• Chapter I. Alone!
• Chapter II. Vanished!
• Chapter III. Her Vision.
• Chapter IV. A Psychologist.
• Chapter V. The Discovery.
• Chapter VI. What Was It?
• Chapter VII. An Open Coffin!
• Chapter VIII. Conclusion Of The Professor'S Narrative.

· Part II. The Varley Murder Case

• Chapter IX. The Verdict.
• Chapter X. Told By A Special-Pleader.
• Chapter XI. From The 'Evening Star'.
• Chapter XII. The Eastern Gable.
• Chapter XIII. The Shadow Of The Stain.
• Chapter XIV. An Ominous Whisper.
• Chapter XV. A Startling Likeness.
• Chapter XVI. In The Stillness Of The Night.

· Part III. The Prophecy Fulfilled.

• Chapter XVII. The Manor House Phantom Again Visible.
• Chapter XVIII. Realization Of The Vision.
• Chapter XIX. The Wail Of A Little Child.
• Chapter XX. Miserrima!

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