From the author of The Woman in White: In nineteenth-century England, a man’s hard-earned happiness is threatened by a priest who covets his inheritance . . . Lewis Romayne has just returned to Vange Abbey, his home in England, after a traumatic experience in France that still haunts him. Trying to shake his memories of a fatal duel, Romayne visits London, where he meets and falls in love with his future bride. But he soon finds himself the object of one man’s obsession. Father Benwell, a priest, is determined to convert Romayne to the Catholic faith in order to regain the abbey, the latter man’s home, which once belonged to the church. Benwell will do anything to accomplish his goal—even sabotage Romayne’s new marriage by exposing a hidden scandal. As this riveting drama unfolds, Romayne must finally decide who is truly entitled to his heart, his soul, and his property.

My wife, in her impulsive way, forgot the formalities proper to the occasion, and kissed her sister at parting. At that one little act of sisterly sympathy, the fortitude which the poor creature had preserved all through the evening gave way in an instant. She burst into tears. I felt as fond of her and as sorry for her as my wife. But (unfortunately) I could not take my wife's privilege of kissing her. On our way downstairs, I found the opportunity of saying a cheering word to her husband as he accompanied us to the door. "Before I open this," I remarked, pointing to the portfolio under my arm, "my mind is made up, sir, about one thing. If I wasn't married already, I tell you this -- I should envy you your wife." He pointed to the portfolio in his turn. "Read what I have written there," he said; "and you will understand what those false friends of mine have made me suffer tonight." The next morning my wife and I opened the portfolio, and read the strange story of George Germaine's marriage.

The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy (1911) is a novel by Arnold Bennett. Excerpt from the book: "I see," I observed, carrying my crushed remains out into the street. Impossible to conceal the fact that I had recently arrived from Edinburgh as raw as a ploughboy! If you had seen me standing irresolute on the pavement, tapping my stick of Irish bog oak idly against the curbstone, you would have seen a slim youth, rather nattily dressed (I think), with a shadow of brown on his upper lip, and a curl escaping from under his hat, and the hat just a little towards the back of his head, and a pretty good chin, and the pride of life in his ingenuous eye. Quite unaware that he was immature! Quite unaware that the supple curves of his limbs had an almost feminine grace that made older fellows feel paternal! Quite unaware that he had everything to learn, and that all his troubles lay before him! Actually fancying himself a man because he had just taken his medical degree...