Old Lover's Ghost Read Online Free PDF

sane person has observed anything of the sort. It is nonsense. Ghosts and goblins are creatures of the imagination to frighten children and the ignorant, superstitious lower orders.”
    “The Society for the Study of Discarnate Beings numbers several gentlemen of no mean intellectual accomplishments. We have a professor from Oxford and an elderly gentleman who is a retired bishop.”
    “A senile, superannuated clergyman might well be prey to imaginings.”
    “The Oxford professor is only fifty years old. How can you be so certain you are right and the rest of us are wrong? Your own mama and Lord Winton believe.”
    “Mama is in a highly nervous condition. She is obviously hallucinating. As to Lewis!”
    “Half the nobility of England believe in ghosts,” she said. “You may believe or not, but you are in no position to call it all nonsense.”
    He pinned her with a gimlet glance and demanded, “Have you ever seen a ghost?”
    “No. I have never seen the world looking anything but flat either, but I believe it is round.”
    “You are confusing science and superstition here, ma’am.”
    “Science is superstition until it is proven otherwise! You forget Galileo was tried as a heretic and spent eight years in prison.”
    Merton frowned in perplexity. He had not expected such a hard argument from a young lady, and a foolish one who believed in ghosts at that.
    “Show me a ghost and I will be as keen a believer as the next man,” he said.
    “We might just do that. Stranger things have happened. It is narrow-minded of you to assume that because you do not understand something, it does not exist. Look at electricity! What a strange and wonderful thing it is. All that invisible energy stored up in the air.”
    “I did not invite you here to convert me.”
    “You have made it amply clear that you did not invite us at all.”
    “I meant into the saloon, just now. I want to discuss Mama’s predicament in a rational manner. Personally, I think this harping on ghosts and such things can only harm her, in her delicate mental condition.”
    “A festering mental wound does not heal itself by being covered up, though, any more than a physical one does. It must be treated, the poison let out.”
    “Just so.” He leaned forward, eagerness lending a gleam to his dark eyes. “Mama’s particular aberration is that some ghost is harassing her. The logical cure is to be rid of the ghost.”
    “That is why my father is here,” she replied in confusion.
    “Yes, well, that is fine, but as I said, I do not believe in ghosts. As Mama does, however, the simplest cure would be to remove the ghost, would it not?”
    “My father is not an exorcist, milord. You do not ease a mental strain by pretending it has gone away. If Lady Merton is troubled, you must discover the cause and treat it. Do you have any notion what is plaguing her?”
    He gave a frustrated shake of his head. “None in the least. She was perfectly normal until a month or so ago, when she began to complain of not being able to sleep. She seemed frightened of something. That is when she elevated Miss Monteith to her companion. I hoped that might be the end of Mama’s megrims. I am sorry to say it, things have only got worse.”
    “I see.” When Merton said nothing more, Charity continued. “When Papa mentioned a young woman, and an affair of the heart, your mama became excited. I believe that described her ghost ...” Merton gave a frown of impatience. “Or what we shall call her ghost.”
    “There is no young woman in the house except servants.”
    “As your mama believes the woman to be a ghost, then the woman is obviously dead. She was speaking of the past. Some woman she associated with in her own youth, perhaps. It is odd Papa did not say a young lady,” she said, frowning.
    As Miss Wainwright seemed a sensible person, barring this aberration of believing in ghosts, Merton wasted no more time, but plunged on to his specific request. “I would like your