Everywhere the furnishings were green with mold and sinking rapidly to decay. No trace, not even so much as a footprint on the dust-covered floors of the ghostly visitant was anywhere found. "It's no use, Lije," said Tisdale, hoarsely, as they paused at length in the great hall at the foot of the staircase which they had ascended upon their first entrance to the house. "You may search all night, but you'll find nothing. It was poor Maria's spirit that we saw." "Nonsense, Reuben Tisdale! Do you mean to tell me that at your time of life you are going to give way to a belief in ghosts?" "I didn't believe in them any more than you until to-night, but, after what we saw, what is a man to think?" "I tell you it's a trick. This house has the reputation of being haunted, brought about by my own nocturnal searches within its walls. Some one saw us enter, and followed us to give us a scare." Tisdale shook his head incredulously. "Absurd," he said, with emphasis. "You saw the thing as well as I. What did it look like? Answer me that." "Well, I must admit that it looked like Maria." "I should say so. Wasn't it her face, her form, her dress? Do you suppose a man can forget the form of his wife? I tell you no. Not if he lived to be a thousand years old. Besides, I saw the mark of my fist upon her forehead, poor girl. Great God, to think that I should have struck her dead at my feet! She who once loved me more than all else on earth." "Rube, you are acting like a perfect child!" exclaimed Callister, impatiently. "Here we are standing directly upon the verge of a precipice, as it were, and you give way like this. Detectives are on our track, man; the capture of Joe Dutton, unless he can be silenced most effectually, is likely to prove a fatal blow to us, and what we want is money--money alone will pull us through; without it all my influence in the business world will go for naught." "Well, you have money, folks say. Use it--it is as much to your interest as the rest of us." "Have I? So you say. Let me tell you, Rube Tisdale, that my stock operations of the last year have left me a well-nigh ruined man. I depended upon this bank affair to put me on my feet again. It has failed. If you had only preserved that parchment more carefully, every dollar of old Mansfield's wealth would now be within our grasp." "Oh! stow that!" cried Tisdale, angrily. "What's the use of throwing all the blame on me? The bank affair proved a failure, didn't it! The parchment was lost, through my carelessness, I'll admit. Let's face matters as they are, and make the best of them we can. Come, let's be off out of this. We can do no more here to-night." Callister blew out the lantern and opened the door.