Neville recounts that his secretary, a Catholic, dropped dead of a heart attack on a hot August day in New York; Neville returned east to arrange a proper Catholic funeral for him in Haverstraw. Six months later, Neville found himself together with the departed man in the other world, and used the encounter to argue that people do not change after death -- they carry on with the same outlook, still "dreaming," until they are born from above.