Her nightly chats with me when we were alone after dinner--for I had come
to avoid her questioning at other times--kept my imagination at high
pressure. Despite myself, I could not but find new cause for concern in
the perennial founts of her superstition. I had thought, years ago, that
I had then sounded the depths of this branch of psychicism; but this new
phase of thought, founded on the really deep hold which the existence of
my beautiful visitor and her sad and dreadful circumstances had taken
upon me, brought me a new concern in the matter of self-importance. I
came to think that I must reconstruct my self-values, and begin a fresh
understanding of ethical beliefs. Do what I would, my mind would keep
turning on the uncanny subjects brought before it. I began to apply them
one by one to my own late experience, and unconsciously to try to fit
them in turn to the present case. The effect of this brooding was that I was, despite my own will, struck
by the similarity of circumstances bearing on my visitor, and the
conditions apportioned by tradition and superstition to such strange
survivals from earlier ages as these partial existences which are rather
Undead than Living--still walking the earth, though claimed by the world
of the Dead. Amongst them are the Vampire, or the Wehr-Wolf. To this
class also might belong in a measure the 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 how obstinate were my
convictions at any given time, unsettlement came with fresh thinking over
the argument, so that I was kept in a harassing state of uncertainty. Briefly, the evidence in favour of accord between the facts of the case
and the Vampire theory were:

Her coming was at night--the time the Vampire is according to the theory,
free to move at will. She wore her shroud--a necessity of coming fresh from grave or tomb; for
there is nothing occult about clothing which is not subject to astral or
other influences. She had to be helped into my room--in strict accordance with what one
sceptical critic of occultism has called "the Vampire etiquette." She made violent haste in getting away at cock-crow. She seemed preternaturally cold; her sleep was almost abnormal in
intensity, and yet the sound of the cock-crowing came through it. These things showed her to be subject to _some_ laws, though not in exact
accord within those which govern human beings. Under the stress of such
circumstances as she must have gone through, her vitality seemed more
than human--the quality of vitality which could outlive ordinary burial. Again, such purpose as she had shown in donning, under stress of some
compelling direction, her ice-cold wet shroud, and, wrapt in it, going
out again into the night, was hardly normal for a woman. But if so, and if she was indeed a Vampire, might not whatever it may be
that holds such beings in thrall be by some means or other exorcised? To
find the means must be my next task. I am actually pining to see her
again. Never before have I been stirred to my depths by anyone. Come it
from Heaven or Hell, from the Earth or the Grave, it does not matter; I
shall make it my task to win her back to life and peace. If she be
indeed a Vampire, the task may be hard and long; if she be not so, and if
it be merely that circumstances have so gathered round her as to produce
that impression, the task may be simpler and the result more sweet. No,
not more sweet; for what can be more sweet than to restore the lost or
seemingly lost soul of the woman you love! There, the truth is out at
last! I suppose that I have fallen in love with her. If so, it is too
late for me to fight against it. I can only wait with what patience I
can till I see her again. But to that end I can do nothing. I know
absolutely nothing about her--not even her name. Patience! RUPERT'S JOURNAL--_Continued_. _April_ 16, 1907. The only relief I have had from the haunting anxiety regarding the Lady
of the Shroud has been in the troubled state of my adopted country. There has evidently been something up which I have not been allowed to
know. The mountaineers are troubled and restless; are wandering about,
singly and in parties, and holding meetings in strange places. This is
what I gather used to be in old days when intrigues were on foot with
Turks, Greeks, Austrians, Italians, Russians. This concerns me vitally,
for my mind has long been made up to share the fortunes of the Land of
the Blue Mountains. For good or ill I mean to stay here: _J'y suis_,
_j'y reste_.