Jervas Dudley, a man given to daydreaming, had spent years obsessed with a padlocked mausoleum near his childhood home — the tomb of the Hyde family, whose mansion had burned down decades before. One night, after a long sleep beside the tomb, he awoke to find the padlock broken and the door ajar. He entered and found a coffin with his own name inscribed on the lid. Each night thereafter, he slept inside the coffin, convinced he was within the tomb, while those who saw him from outside saw him sleeping on the grass beside it. He grew fearful of fire and thunder, and of the eyes watching him from the nearby house. One night, during a storm, he wandered toward the tomb and found the Hyde mansion restored and filled with revelers. He joined them, and as the house burned around him, he fell into a trance. He awoke in his own bed, his mind shattered, and was taken to an asylum. There, he told his servant Hiram to investigate the tomb. Hiram broke the lock and descended into the vault, where he found the coffin with Jervas's name on it. Jervas, now broken by his illness, told him he had been promised burial in that coffin.