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.