These stories have been written in the hopes of giving some pleasant qualms to their reader, so that, if by chance, anyone may be occupying in their perusal a leisure half-hour before he goes to bed when the night and the house are still, he may perhaps cast an occasional glance into the corners and dark places of the room where he sits, to make sure that nothing unusual lurks in the shadow. For this is the avowed object of ghost-stories and such tales as deal with the dim unseen forces which occasionally and perturbingly make themselves manifest. The author therefore fervently wishes his readers a few uncomfortable moments. Some of those tales have appeared before in various magazines; the remainder are new. One, the story of “The Man who went too Far,” is the germ of what subsequently developed into a book called “The Angel of Pain.” E. F. BENSON. CONTENTS PAGE THE ROOM IN THE TOWER 1 THE DUST-CLOUD 22 GAVON’S EVE 44 THE CONFESSION OF CHARLES LINKWORTH 62 AT ABDUL ALI’S GRAVE 87 THE SHOOTINGS OF ACHNALEISH 107 HOW FEAR DEPARTED FROM THE LONG GALLERY 131 CATERPILLARS 155 THE CAT 169 THE BUS-CONDUCTOR 192 THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR 206 BETWEEN THE LIGHTS 241 OUTSIDE THE DOOR 260 THE TERROR BY NIGHT 273 THE OTHER BED 285 THE THING IN THE HALL 302 THE HOUSE WITH THE BRICK-KILN 321 THE ROOM IN THE TOWER