“You wouldn’t believe in a life after death at all, then?”

“It’s a pure assumption, Henry.  I’d like to believe in it—­who wouldn’t?  Because, if you honestly did, it would transform this life into something infinitely different from what it is.”

“It ought to—­yet it doesn’t seem to.”

“It ought to, certainly.  If you believe this life is only the portal to another of much greater importance, then—­well, there you are.  Nothing matters but trying to make everybody else believe t, too.  But as a matter of fact, the people who do believe it, or think they do, seem to me just as concentrated on this life and just as much out to get the very best they can from it, and wring it dry, as I am, who reckon it’s all.”

“They believe as a matter of course, and don’t seem to realize how much their belief ought to imply,” confessed Henry.

“Why do they believe?  Because most of them haven’t really thought about it more than a turnip thinks.  They dwell in a foggy sort of way on the future life when they go to church on Sundays; then they return home and forget all about it till next Sunday.”

Lennox brought him back to the present difference.

“Well, seeing you laugh at ghosts, and I remain doubtful, it’s only fair that I sleep in the Grey Room.  You must see that.  Ghosts hate people who don’t believe in them.  They’d cold shoulder you; but in my case they might feel I was good material, worth convincing.  They might show up for me in a friendly spirit.  If they show for you, it will probably be to bully you.”

Tom laughed.

“That’s what I want.  I’d like to have it out and talk sense to a spook, and show him what an ass he’s making of himself.  The governor was right about that.  When Fayre-Michell asked if he believed in them loafing about a place where they’d been murdered or otherwise maltreated, he rejected the idea.”

“Yet a woman certainly died there, and without a shadow of reason.”

“She probably died for a very good reason, only we don’t happen to know it.”

Henry tried a different argument.

“You’re married, and you matter; I’m not married, and don’t matter to anybody.”

“Humbug!”

“Mary wouldn’t like it, anyway; you know that.”

“True—­she’d hate it.  But she won’t know anything about it till to-morrow.  She always sleeps in her old nursery when she comes here, and I’m down the corridor at the far end.  She’d have a fit if she knew I’d turned in next door to her and was snoozing in the Grey Room; but she won’t know till I tell her of my rash act to-morrow.  Don’t think I’m a fool.  Nobody loves life better than I do, and nobody has better reason to.  But I’m positive that this is all rank nonsense, and so are you really.  We know there’s nothing in the room with a shadow of supernatural danger about it.  Besides, you wouldn’t want to sleep there so badly if you believed anything wicked was waiting for you.  You’re tons cleverer than I am—­so you must agree about that.”