I have recently read the 1895 supernatural short story “Lost Hearts” by M. R. James. The drama tells the story of Stephen Elliott, an inquisitive 11 year old orphan, who is sent to stay with his much older cousin, the scholarly and seemingly affable Mr Abney, at a remote country mansion, Aswarby Hall, in Lincolnshire. However During his stay Stephen is repeatedly troubled by mysterious visions of a young gypsy girl and a travelling Italian boy. So he consults the housekeeper Mrs Bunch who says that years ago Mr Abney kindly gave food and shelter to the young orphan Italian Boy named Giovanni and a young orphan gypsy girl named Phoebe, however they both mysteriously vanished one day with Giovanni leaving his Hurdy Gurdy.
While exploring the grounds of Aswarby Hall Stephen encounters the ghost of a young girl and a young boy. Later that night Stephen has disturbing nightmares and sees the ghost of Giovanni again and discovers that both Giovanni and Phoebe have received some gruesome injuries,
It transpires that Mr Abney is a learned but reclusive alchemist who is an expert on the magico religious practices of late antiquity and dabbles in the dark arts, Abney’s library contains many books bearing on the Mysteries, the Orphic poems, the worship of Mithras, and the Neo–Platonists. Mr Abney has been studying these books with the aim of gaining occult powers and immortality and has learnt that with the “absorption” of the hearts of not less than three human beings below the age of twenty-one years it is possible to gain immortality. Abney also seems to have an unhealthy obsession with Stephen’s birthday. Then After reading Abney’s diary Stephen is horrified to discover that, Mr Abney has been conducting macabre rituals in his quest for everlasting life.
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