Dr. Willett and Mr. Ward caught something of a profound, subtle, and insidious cosmic fear from this data as it was gradually unfolded, and almost trembled in following up the vague, mad thought which had simultaneously reached their minds. The false beard and glasses, the crabbed Curwen penmanship⁠—the old portrait and its tiny scar⁠— and the altered youth in the hospital with such a scar ⁠—that deep, hollow voice on the telephone⁠—was it not of this that Mr.