won't prevent my shins from bleeding wet, red blood when I bark them against a stone."
"You don't believe in the supernatural then?" asked Mr. May.
"Most emphatically not."
"How extraordinary! And how, if I may ask, do you fill the terrible vacuum in your life that such a denial must create?"
"I have never been conscious of such a vacuum. I was a sceptic from my youth up. No doubt those who were nurtured in superstition, when reason at last conquers and they break away, may experience a temporary blank; but the wonders of nature and the achievements of man and the demands of the suffering world—these should be enough to fill any blank for a reasonable creature."
"If such are your opinions, you will fail here," declared the clergyman positively.
"Why do you feel so sure of that?"
"Because you are faced with facts that have no material explanation. They are supernatural, or supernormal, if you prefer the word."
"'One world at a time,' is a very good motto in my judgment," replied Hardcastle. "We will exhaust the possibilities of this world first, sir."
"They have already been exhausted. Only a simple, straightforward question awaits your reply. Do you believe in another world or do you not?"
"In the endless punishment or the endless happiness of men and women after they are dead?"
"If you like to confuse the issue in that way you are at liberty, of course, to do so. As a
