Colonel Hapgood, our narrator, has been sending his son Denis to a chateau of a distant relative in the French countryside where the boy has taken quite a fancy to the visits. Ultimately based on the curious behavior of his cousin M. Vaignon and the uneasy feeling he gets when visiting the chateau, Hapgood decides that his son's visits must stop. Incidentally at the same time, M. Vaignon sends a message to Hapgood basically requesting the same thing, a communication silence and no more visits. Denis is at first distraught but soon becomes joyful as his friend Raoul from France, an older man who apparently acted as a groundskeeper of sorts at Vaignon's estate, shows up in England to continue their friendship. Hapgood is immediately repelled by Raoul's odd lack of characteristics in his visage and becomes increasingly concerned as his son takes ill and becomes weaker and weaker as the days go on. Is this menace to his son's well-being all in Hapgood's mind or is Raoul some kind of supernatural emissary of darkness? - Summary by Ben Tucker