Medusa's Coil

The unnamed narrator of the story is driving to Cape Girardeau, Missouri but gets lost in the unfamiliar country. He comes across a rundown plantation house and finds the only inhabitant is an emaciated old man called Antoine de Russy. The narrator asks if he can spend the night in the house: the old man agrees and begins to tell the tale of the place. He explains that he inherited the estate from his grandfather and married in 1885. He had a son Dennis who, as a young man, was sent to the Sorbonne in Paris. There Dennis met an artist, Frank Marsh from New Orleans, and the two men became involved in a mystical cult. Dennis became infatuated with the head of the cult, a woman called Marceline and married her. Around 1916 Dennis returned to Missouri with his new wife, but Antoine and his servants found her strangely repulsive.