“Jus’ ghosts. My soul! I slep’ here in this house once. I heard them steps all night. Hurry, hurry--hunt, hunt--but I never see nothin’. Bermuda’s haunted, I tell you so.” “Is the house called Bermuda?” asked Andria quickly. “Yas’m. And if it isn’t haunted, why is it that they’s no footsteps heard out’n the quarters? Only in the big house.” So the house was called Bermuda! That was what Amelia had meant on the stairs. Andria’s heart lightened a little, for at least it showed the servants were not in league with Egerton to deceive her. “Nobody ever sees the ‘haunt,’ do they?” she asked. “No’m! Sometimes ’taint here at all. Salome she say it’s nonsense--but I don’t hear it. An’ yet it ain’t never amounted to nothing, only jus’ noises.” “Are there monkeys here, Amelia?” Amelia Jane laughed till she had to cover her face with her apron. “Monkeys! No’m. I been here three years, an’ I never hear tell of no monkeys. There ain’t no beasts ’tall. When you’ve had you bath’m kin I brush out your hair? It’s tangled till if you piroots round in it you’ll tear it out.” Andria thanked her, her heart warming to the kindly voice. But when her toilet was done and she stood, fresh and fair, in front of the glass, some one knocked at the door. It was Salome, and her fat face was anxious. “Morning, missus,” she said hastily. “I come to tell you little miss must habe gone out. I can’t see her nowhere.” “Out! Alone?” Andria gasped, “Oh, Salome! Which way? Not down that path?” “You clear out and look down de road, ‘Melia Jane!” commanded the housekeeper, and stopped Andria, as she would have followed. “Don’t you say nothin’ of dat path to ‘Melia Jane,” she whispered. “She’d be faint-hearted of de place ef she got skeered. But run, missus, do; and get little miss. She didn’t know no other way to go.” “Then you heard--last night!” cried Andria, almost running through the house, Salome at her heels. “Heard what? Dey ain’t nothin’ to hear. Don’t you listen to tales from ‘Melia Jane ’bout haunts. Dey’s fever in dat path, dat’s all,” said the woman, lying obstinately. Andria shot out of the house like an arrow from a bow. Down that uncanny path, with its hot, strong scents and gaudy flowers, she ran as she had never thought she could run; her skirts caught to her knees, she leaped and stumbled and slid over the tangled vines and sharp rocks. Suddenly a gleam of white caught her eyes, and between two high rocks she saw Beryl, kneeling over something on the ground. “Beryl,” she screamed, hoarse with fear and anger at the girl’s disobedience; “Beryl, why did you come here? Come home!” “Hush!” said the girl softly, turning her head, “I’m all right! Come here quietly and see what I’ve found. Such a darling kitten!” Andria, her pulses thumping and her breath gone, caught back an angry word. What did the child mean? She had noticed last evening that Salome had no dogs or cats. And then her heart contracted.