“Perhaps,” resumed her father, “I could tell you what you see; but I will only tell you what it is you _may_ see. You may see a beauty of your Regency or a favourite of your Charles; the daughter of a Viking, an ancient British princess; the slave of a Cæsar, the dancer of a Pharaoh!” “You believe in reincarnation?” suggested Clement Leyland, quietly. “Yes, certainly, why not, of course!” rumbled Moris Klaw. “But I do not speak of it now, not I; I speak of Nature’s reproduction; I tell you how Nature wastes nothing which is beautiful. What has the soul to do with the body? I tell you how the reproduction goes on and on until the mould, the plate, the die, has perished! So is it with ghosts. You write me that your goblin has learned some new tricks. I answer, your goblin can never learn new tricks; I answer, this is not he, it is another goblin! Nature is conservative with her goblins as with her beautiful women; she does not disfigure the old model with alterations. What! Chop them about? Never! she makes new ones.” Clement Leyland smiled discreetly, but Sir James was evidently interested. “Of course I’ve read ‘Psychic Angles,’ Mr. Klaw,” he said; “consequently, your novel theories do not altogether surprise me. I gather your meaning to be this: a haunted house is haunted in exactly the same way generation after generation? Any new development points to the presence of a new force or intelligence?” “It is exactly quite so,” Moris Klaw nodded, sympathetically. “You have the receptive mind, Sir James; you should take up ghosts; they would like you. There is a scientific future for the sympathetic ghost-hunter, for--I will whisper it--these poor ghosts are sometimes so glad to be hunted! It is a lonely life, that of a ghost!” “The Grange ghost,” Sir James assured him, “is a most gregarious animal. He doesn’t go in for lonely groanings in the chapel or anything of that kind; he drops into the billiard room frequently, he’s often to be met with right here in the dining room, and of late he’s been sleeping with me regularly!” “So I hear,” rumbled Moris Klaw; “so I hear. It is quaint, yes; proceed, my friend.” Isis Klaw sat with her big eyes fixed upon Sir James, as he continued: “The traditional ghost of Grange was a gray monk who, on certain nights--I forget the exact dates--came out from the chapel beyond the orchard carrying a long staff, walked up to a buttress of the west wall, and disappeared at the point where formerly there was a private entrance. In fact, there used to be a secret stair opening at that point and communicating with a room built by a remote Leyland of the eighth Henry’s time--a notorious roué. The last Leyland to use the room was Sir Francis, an intimate of Charles II. The next heir had the wing rebuilt, and the ancient door walled up.”