e Doppelganger--one of whose dual
existences commonly belongs to the actual world around it. So, too, the
denizens of the world of Astralism. In any of these named worlds there
is a material presence--which must be created, if only for a single or
periodic purpose. It matters not whether a material presence already
created can be receptive of a disembodied soul, or a soul unattached can
have a body built up for it or around it; or, again, whether the body of
a dead person can be made seeming quick through some diabolic influence
manifested in the present, or an inheritance or result of some baleful
use of malefic power in the past. The result is the same in each case,
though the ways be widely different: a soul and a body which are not in
unity but brought together for strange purposes through stranger means
and by powers still more strange.

Through much thought and a process of exclusions the eerie form which
seemed to be most in correspondence with my adventure, and most suitable
to my fascinating visitor, appeared to be the Vampire. Doppelganger,
Astral creations, and all such-like, did not comply with the conditions
of my night experience. The Wehr-Wolf is but a variant of the Vampire,
and so needed not to be classed or examined at all. Then it was that,
thus focussed, the Lady of the Shroud (for so I came to hold her in my
mind) began to assume a new force. Aunt Janet's library afforded me
clues which I followed with avidity. In my secret heart I hated the
quest, and did not wish to go on with it. But in this I was not my own
master. Do what I would--brush away doubts never so often, new doubts
and imaginings came in their stead. The circumstance almost repeated the
parable of the Seven Devils who took the place of the exorcised one.
Doubts I could stand. Imaginings I could stand. But doubts and
imaginings together made a force so fell that I was driven to accept any
reading of the mystery which might presumably afford a foothold for
satisfying thought. And so I came to accept tentatively the Vampire
theory--accept it, at least, so far as to examine it as judicially as was
given me to do. As the days wore on, so the conviction grew. The more I
read on the subject, the more directly the evidences pointed towards this
view. The more I thought, the more obstinate became the conviction. I
ransacked Aunt Janet's volumes again and again to find anything to the
contrary; but in vain. Again, no matter h