Tongues of Conscience

Robert Hichens gathered five stories of dread and remorse in this 1900 collection, each turning on the idea that a single selfish act can summon a lifetime of haunting. The tales range from “Sea Change” and “William Foster” to “The Cry of the Child,” in which an egotistic doctor is pursued by the wail of his dead infant. Its centerpiece, “How Love Came to Professor Guildea,” has outlived the rest: a coldly rational scientist who boasts that he has no need of affection finds himself courted by the devotion of an unseen presence he cannot reason away. That story is now counted among the finest English ghost stories and is still widely anthologized. Readers who prefer supernatural fiction rooted in conscience rather than spectacle will find it rewarding.