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.