Coming home from the sober materialism of Leipzig, Diemann had realized more fully than ever how thoroughly the interest in matters occult had pervaded the mind of his native country. To this department of Psychology he turned with an admitted interest in things unseen and a confidence in the restraint of his University training. He felt that he stood barely upon the threshold of the subject, held back by material prejudice and the conservatism of little faith; yet his enthusiasm grew daily. He weighed the evidence of phenomena with an impartiality that other people pronounced belief. The attitude of those about him was for the most part unsympathetic. Some to whom he had made furtive confidences called him "spooky," a spiritualist; but he was merely an investigator, trying to be fair. It was an alluring study; perhaps he ran the risk of over-enthusiasm--he had known people who had spiritualized the palpably material--but he was guarding against this danger; it would take an exceptional impulse ever to get him to that point. It might be that some such temptation was coming to him now. He had just seen his friend pass into perfect knowledge. Blake had said something to him at the last that still ran in his ears, above the rumble of the train. "I will come back, if there is anything in it all." Diemann, peering out into the deepening gloom toward the bay shore faintly white in the luminous mist, thought over this last interview of theirs; he was finding it hard to realize that their friendship had ended. Only eight days before, he remembered, Blake first complained. It was at the practice, and Diemann had given him a shot about his listless work. Fred had answered: "I can't help it, Die; I feel dead, somehow. I'm afraid I'm going stale, after all." He recalled the drawn look on Fred's face. But the boy would come out the next night, for there was only a week before the team would leave for the Springs, and so much had to be done that the captain simply couldn't lay off. Toward the end of the practice, he collapsed. With his arm over Lyman's shoulder he had gone back to the Hall, dragging his feet heavily, while the crowd sat on the bleachers, quiet and frightened. Then the pain came, tearing its way into the heroic body, and the specialist hurriedly summoned from San Francisco had said that they must get him to the hospital.