"Frank Lyman, Football Manager, Stanford University:
"Blake died three forty-five. Body going East. I return five train. Diemann."
When he had sent this message to the University, the instructor in Psychology went gloomily down to the Third and Townsend Street station.
There was nothing more to be done just then. He had telegraphed to the dead athlete's parents; the undertakers had their instructions about shipping the body to Ohio, and the hospital bills would be arranged for later. He slipped into a single seat at the back of the car to avoid the chance of a travelling acquaintance. Now that the business part of it was over, he could not talk to anyone.
The whole thing had been so sudden that it was hard to feel the truth. Barely a week ago he had stood on the practice field at the University, following Blake's splendid play and listening to the shouting of the crowded bleachers, who idolized their great fullback with the absolute idolatry of a college crowd. It was not easy to believe that all this physical manhood, all this intellectual promise, had been snuffed out like a candle before their very eyes.
Diemann pressed his face against the car window and stared out at the terraced produce gardens slipping dimly by in the early November dusk. Between him and the dead fullback there had been such companionship as comes now and then to an instructor under thirty and a man nearing the end of his college course. When Diemann, just home from Germany, came West to teach Psychology, he found young Blake the college hero. The new instructor had himself been a noted back; he still hovered somewhere between enthusiast and fiend. At Stanford he at once identified himself with the football men, and they welcomed him gladly as assistant coach. During that first season, two years ago, he had come to know and like Fred Blake. Later, the fullback took Diemann's course in Psychology, and to the elder man's gratification, developed a passion for the subject. The instructor recognized the quality of the athlete's mind, and before long the two were working together, reading and discussing along the line of the teacher's special interest.
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: