that he bade me good-night, and went. I was very angry with him, for
I was a conceited youth and thought myself and my particular
associates the very cream of Oxford,--but he took all the highest
honours that year, and when he finally left the University he
vanished, so to speak, in a blaze of intellectual glory. I have
never seen him again--and never heard of him--and so I suppose his
studies led him nowhere. He must be an elderly man now,--he may be
lame, blind, lunatic, or what is more probable still, he may be
dead, and I don't know why I think of him except that his theories
were much the same as those of our little friend,"--again indicating
me by a nod--"He never cared for agreeable speeches,--always rather
mistrusted social conventions, and believed in a Higher Life after
Death."

"Or a Lower,"--I put in, quietly.

"Ah yes! There must be a Down grade, of course, if there is an Up.
The two would be part of each other's existence. But as I accept
neither, the point does not matter."

I looked at him, and I suppose my looks expressed wonder or pity or
both, for he averted his glance from mine.

"You are something of a spiritualist, I believe?"--said Dr. Brayle,
lifting his hard eyes from the scrutiny of the tablecloth and fixing
them upon me.

"Not at all,"--I answered, at once, and with emphasis. "That is, if
you mean by the term 'spiritualist' a credulous person who believes
in mediumistic trickery, automatic writing and the like. That is