




                         THE ROOM IN THE TOWER

                           AND OTHER STORIES


THE MORNING POST says: “Messrs Mills & Boon seem to have acquired a
monopoly in clever first novels.” THE PALL MALL GAZETTE says: “We have
come to expect good work from the publishers of ‘In Different Keys’
(Mills & Boon).” THE GLOBE says: “One has almost come to regard Messrs
Mills & Boon as the publishers of the unexpected. Alike in fiction and
in more serious works, they introduce us to writers of exceptional
ability, and to subjects of uncommon interest.” THE NEW YORK HERALD
says: “They have long ago acquired the reputation for the production of
original books.”


                       Mills & Boon’s New Novels

                         _Crown 8vo, 6s. each_

                THE LURE. E. S. STEVENS. THE DAUGHTER OF BRAHMA. I. A. R. WYLIE. THE ROOM IN THE TOWER. E. F. BENSON. A BACHELOR’S COMEDY. J. E. BUCKROSE. THE PALACE OF LOGS. ROBERT BARR. WHEN GOD LAUGHS. JACK LONDON. ASHES OF INCENSE. By the AUTHOR OF “MASTERING FLAME.”
                HIS FIRST OFFENCE. J. STORER CLOUSTON. THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE. HUGH WALPOLE. THE BATTLE. CLAUDE FARRERE. STORIES WITHOUT TEARS. BARRY PAIN. THE FRONTIER. MAURICE LEBLANC. THE MARK. Mrs PHILIP CHAMPION DE CRESPIGNY. THE GIRL WITH THE BLUE EYES. Lady TROUBRIDGE. SONS OF STATE. WINIFRED GRAHAM. ENTER BRIDGET. THOMAS COBB. THE THORNBUSH NEAR THE DOOR. SOPHIE COLE. MEN AND DREAMS. MARY E. MANN. THE WRITTEN LAW. FRANCES G. KNOWLES-FOSTER. RUTH OF THE ROWLDRICH. Mrs STANLEY WRENCH. THE PRINCE. T. METCALFE. THE SILVER MEDALLION. PERCY J. BREBNER. THE PRINCE AND BETTY. P. G. WODEHOUSE. ALIENS NEAR OF KIN. N. VERNON. THE

                           ROOM IN THE TOWER

                           AND OTHER STORIES


                                  BY

                             E. F. BENSON

                               AUTHOR OF
                    “THE ANGEL OF PAIN,” “SHEAVES”


                            SECOND EDITION


                         MILLS & BOON, LIMITED
                           49 RUPERT STREET
                               LONDON W.

                           _Published 1912_

  _Copyright in the United States of America, 1912, by E. F. Benson_




PREFACE


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


It is probable that everybody who is at all a constant dreamer has had
at least one experience of an event or a sequence of circumstances which
have come to his mind in sleep being subsequently realised in the
material world. But, in my opinion, so far from this being a strange
thing, it would be far odder if this fulfilment did not occasionally
happen, since our dreams are, as a rule, concerned with people whom we
know and places with which we are familiar, such as might very naturally
occur in the awake and day-lit world. True, these dreams are often
broken into by some absurd and fantastic incident, which puts them out
of court in regard to their subsequent fulfilment, but on the mere
calculation of chances, it does not appear in the least unlikely that a
dream imagined by anyone who dreams constantly should occasionally come
true. Not long ago, for instance, I experienced such a fulfilment of a
dream which seems to me in no way remarkable and to have no kind of
psychical significance. The manner of it was as follows. A certain friend of mine, living abroad, is amiable enough to write to
me about once in a fortnight. Thus, when fourteen days or thereabouts
have elapsed since I last heard from him, my mind, probably, either
consciously or subconsciously, is expectant of a letter from him. One
night last week I dreamed that as I was going upstairs to dress for
dinner I heard, as I often heard, the sound of the postman’s knock on my
front door, and diverted my direction downstairs instead. There, among
other correspondence, was a letter from him. Thereafter the fantastic
entered, for on opening it I found inside the ace of diamonds, and
scribbled across it in his well-known handwriting, “I am sending you
this for safe custody, as you know it is running an unreasonable risk to
keep aces in Italy.” The next evening I was just preparing to go
upstairs to dress when I heard the postman’s knock, and did precisely as
I had done in my dream. There, among other letters, was one from my
friend. Only it did not contain the ace of diamonds. Had it done so, I
should have attached more weight to the matter, which, as it stands,
seems to me a perfectly ordinary coincidence. No doubt I consciously or
subconsciously expected a letter from him, and this suggested to me my
dream. Similarly, the fact that my friend had not written to me for a
fortnight suggested to him that he should do so.