Also behind looms a still blacker doubt, namely whether they live at all.
For some years of my lonely existence these problems haunted me day by day, till at length I desired above everything on earth to lay them at rest in one way or another.

Once, at Durban, I met a man who was a spiritualist to whom I confided a little of my perplexities.

He laughed at me and said that they could be settled with the greatest ease.

All I had to do was to visit a certain local medium who for a fee of one guinea would tell me everything I wanted to know.

Although I rather grudged the guinea, being more than usually hard up at the time, I called upon this person, but over the results of that visit, or rather the lack of them, I draw a veil.
My queer and perhaps unwholesome longing, however, remained with me and would not be abated.