"Only a Dream"
This is Haggard's only true ghost story, though he has plenty of ghosts in his stories. Perhaps it might rather be categerised as a horror story, which is a more specific classification, as indeed it is quite horrific, and may be a mere dream rather than a genuine manifestation of the dead - though this is by no means necessary for a ghost story.
A man is about to remarry, three years after the death of his first wife. As she lay drying of some wasting disease she promised him that she would think of him, wherever she was, when he was to marry Annie Guthrie, which she foresaw - but did not oppose. Frank, the husband, in due course did agree to marry Miss Guthrie. The night before the wedding he awoke to hear a voice calling him by name from outside his house. The wind blew in the trees, and rain fell, but the voice continued to call "Frank". He went to the door, but there was no one there. He went to the back door, and the voice - which was worryingly familiar in tone - began at that door. Reluctantly be unlatched the door, which blew in. A small figure stood huddled in the doorway. It entered the room, carrying a basket under its arm - the basket that Frank recognised as having belonged to his late wife, but which had been lost off a ship.
The figure, whose features were unclear, asked in a wailing and plaintive voice whether he recognised her yet. It uncovered its head, and as he feared the face was that of his dead wife. She said that she had promised to think of him when he remarried, and that she brought him a present. Since she couldn't give him her life she gave him her death! She withdrew through the door, which swept shut behind her, leaving the basket on the table. Fearfully Frank uncovered it, to disclose, wrapped up, a small bleached human skull.
This, it turned out, was only a dream by the fire, but still he was to be married tomorrow - how might he do so?
This is a dark but nicely turned tale, well up with the works of Lovecroft and others. It is a pity that he didn't tackle more of the genre. Perhaps he found it too uncongenial.