he looked into the future he was
doubtful.

He drew himself up in his chair and began to fill his pipe.... In
three days he would be seated in a room with three or four persons, he
supposed. Of these, two--and certainly the two strongest
characters--had no religion except that supplied by spiritualism, and
he had read enough to know this was, at any rate in the long run,
non-Christian. And these three or four persons, moreover, believed
with their whole hearts that they were in relations with the invisible
world, far more evident and sensible than those claimed by any other
believers on the face of the earth. And, after all, Laurie reflected,
there seemed to be justice in their claim. He would be seated in that
room, he repeated to himself, and it might be that before he left it
he would have seen with his own eyes, and possibly handled, living
persons who had, in the common phrase, "died" and been buried. Almost
certainly, at the very least, he would have received from such
intelligences unmistakable messages....

He was astonished that he was not more excited. He asked himself again
whether he really believed it; he compared his belief in it with his
belief in the existence of New Zealand. Yes, if that were belief, he
had it. But the excitement of doubt was gone, as no doubt it was gone
when New Zealand became a geographical expression.

He was astonished at its naturalness--at the extraordinary manner in
which, when once the evidence had been seen and the point of view
grasped, the whole thing fell into place. It seemed to him as if he
must have known it all his life; yet, he knew, six months ago he had
hardly known more than that there were upon the face of the earth
persons called Spiritualists, who believed, or pretended to believe,
what he then was quite sure was fantastic nonsense. And now he was, to
all intents, one of them....

He was being drawn forward, it seemed, by a process as inevitable as
that of spring or autumn; and, once he had yielded to it, the conflict
and the excitement were over. Certainly this made very few demands.
Christianity said that those were blessed who had not seen and yet
believed; Spiritualism said that the only reasonable belief was that
which followed seeing.

So then Laurie sat and meditated.

Once or twice that evening he looked round him tranquilly without a
touch of that terror that had seized him in the smoking-room at home.

If all this were true--and he repeated to