“I would rather not discuss the matter,” he said at last, with some brusqueness.  “There are certain subjects connected with psychic phenomena on which it is best to be silent; besides, what interest can such things have for you?  You are a sportsman,—­keep to your big game, and leave ghost-hunting to me.”

“That is not a fair answer to my question,” said Courtney, “I’m sure I don’t want to interfere with your researches in any way; I only want to know if it is a fact that ghosts exist, and that they are really of such a nature as to deserve the term ‘scientific.’”

Dr. Dean was silent a moment.  Then, stretching out his small, thin hand, he pointed to the clear sky, where the stars were almost lost to sight in the brilliance of the moon.

“Look out there!” he said, his voice thrilling with sudden and solemn fervor.  “There in the limitless ether move millions of universes—­vast creations which our finite brains cannot estimate without reeling,—­enormous forces always at work, in the mighty movements of which our earth is nothing more than a grain of sand.  Yet far more marvellous than their size or number is the mathematical exactitude of their proportions,—­the minute perfection of their balance,—­the exquisite precision with which every one part is fitted to another part, not a pin’s point awry, not a hair’s breadth astray.  Well, the same exactitude which rules the formation and working of Matter controls the formation and working of Spirit; and this is why I know that ghosts exist, and, moreover, that we are compelled by the laws of the phenomena surrounding us to meet them every day.”

“I confess I do not follow you at all,” said Courtney bewildered.

“No,” and Dr. Dean smiled curiously.  “I have perhaps expressed myself obscurely.  Yet I am generally considered a clear exponent.  First of all, let me ask you, do you believe in the existence of Matter?”

“Why, of course!”

“You do.  Then you will no doubt admit that there is Something—­an Intelligent Principle or Spiritual Force—­which creates and controls this Matter?”

Courtney hesitated.

“Well, I suppose there must be,” he said at last.  “I’m not a church-goer, and I’m rather a free-thinker, but I certainly believe there is a Mind at work behind the Matter.”

“That being the case,” proceeded the Doctor, “I suppose you will not deny to this Invisible Mind the same exactitude of proportion and precise method of action already granted to Visible Matter?”.

“Of course, I could not deny such a reasonable proposition,” said Courtney.

“Very good!  Pursuing the argument logically, and allowing for an exactly-moving Mind behind exactly-working Matter, it follows that there can be no such thing as injustice anywhere in the universe? "

“My dear Socrates redivivus,” laughed Courtney, “I fail to see what all this has to do with ghosts.”