Tales of Men and Ghosts

“Of course Howland’s known all over the world as the interpreter of Pellerinism, and the Aga Gautch, who had absolutely declined to speak anywhere in public, wrote to Isabella t...

“I had left no word for Alice when I fled, because I meant to go back the next morning. But the next morning I was too exhausted to stir. As the day went on the exhaustion incre...

“That’s how it began; and that’s where I thought it would end. But it didn’t, because Dolbrowski answered. His first letter was dated January 10, 1872. I guess you’ll find I’m c...

“Cousin Joseph sat in his usual seat, behind the darkened windows, his fat hands folded on his protuberant waistcoat, the last number of the _Churchman_ at his elbow, and near i...

“If he could choose Dredge he might as well have chosen his own son,” I’ve heard it said; and the irony was that Archie--will you believe it?--actually thought so himself! But L...

And he _was_, do you know--and at prices that would have made a sane man shudder! A few weeks later I ran across his tracks in London, where he was trying to get hold of a Penic...

Millner stirred his coffee in a silence not unclouded by perplexity. “Theoretically, perhaps. It’s a pretty question, certainly. But I also understand your father’s feeling that...

She had taken a foot-path across the downs, and as Boyne, meanwhile, had probably returned from the station by the highroad, there was little likelihood of their meeting on the...

A gust of wind, whirling down from the dizzy height of the building on the next corner, drove sharply through his overcoat and compelled him to clutch at his hat. It was a bitte...

“Yes, twice.” She breathed it at him with dilated eyes. “He came first on the 20th of October. I remember the date because it was the day we went up Meldon Steep for the first t...

“He’s not what you or Howland would call intellectual--“(Bernald writhed at the coupling of the names)--“not in the least _literary;_ though he told Bob he used to write. I don’...

Ronald’s ability to do well almost equalled his gift of looking well. Mr. Grew constantly affirmed to himself that the boy was “not a genius”; but, barring this slight deficienc...

Granice swung round in his chair. “Why, man alive! That’s why I’m here now. Because it was you who spoke for me at the inquest, when they looked round to see what all the old ma...

In exactly three minutes Mr. Peter Ascham, of the eminent legal firm of Ascham and Pettilow, would have his punctual hand on the door-bell of the flat. It was a comfort to refle...

Yet now, as she reviewed the rapid scene, she felt her husband’s explanation of it to have been invalidated by the look of anxiety on his face. Why had the familiar appearance o...

That pact, as she reviewed it through a sleepless night, seemed to have consisted mainly, on his part, in pleadings for full and frequent news of her, on hers in the assurance t...

Bernald had left Portchester the morning after his strange discovery, and he and Bob Wade had not seen each other since. And now Bernald, moved by an irresistible instinct of po...

As she listened, her private pang was merged in the intolerable sense of his unhappiness. Nothing he had said explained or excused his conduct to her; but he had suffered, he ha...

Millner had never before heard his young friend put a case with such unadorned precision. His language was like that of Mr. Spence making a statement to a committee meeting; and...

One Sunday he went out of town, and on his return, rummaging among the papers on his desk, he missed “The Lifted Lamp,” which had been gathering dust there for half a year. What...

Vyse started back with one of his anaemic blushes. “I was hoping you’d be in. I wanted to speak to you. There’ve been no letters the last day or two,” he explained.

The physician received him kindly, and reverted without embarrassment to the conditions of their previous meeting. “We have to do that occasionally, Mr. Granice; it’s one of our...

She knew so well how it must have happened. The letters had reached him when he was busy, occupied with something else, and had been put aside to be read at some future time--a...