"You mean ..." began Courtney.

"I mean," continued the Doctor with some excitement, "that the
sinner who imagines his sins are undiscovered is a fool who
deceives himself. I mean that the murderer who has secretly torn
the life out of his shrieking victim in some unfrequented spot,
and has succeeded in hiding his crime from what we call 'justice,'
cannot escape the Spiritual law of vengeance. What would you say,"
and Dr. Dean laid his thin fingers on Courtney's coat-sleeve with
a light pressure,--"if I told you that the soul of a murdered
creature is often sent back to earth in human shape to dog its
murderer down? And that many a criminal undiscovered by the police
is haunted by a seeming Person,--a man or a woman,--who is on
terms of intimacy with him,--who eats at his table, drinks his
wine, clasps his hand, smiles in his face, and yet is truly
nothing but the ghost of his victim in human disguise, sent to
drag him gradually to his well-deserved, miserable end; what would
you say to such a thing?"

"Horrible!" exclaimed Courtney, recoiling. "Beyond everything
monstrous and horrible!"

The Doctor smiled and withdrew his hand from his companion's arm.

"There are a great many horrible things in the universe as well as
pleasant ones," he observed dryly. "Crime and its results are
always of a disagreeable nature. But we cannot alter the psychic
law of equity any more than we can alter the material law of
gravitation. It is growing late; I think, if you will excuse me, I
will go to bed."