"It is her sister Nanna," he muttered to himself, and knew that he lied in saying it. The old wives' tales, at which he had shuddered in boyhood, came crowding back upon him--grisly legends of vampire shapes and of the phantoms, invariably feminine in form, who were said to inhabit ruined places. A panic terror seized him as he watched the apparition gliding so swiftly and noiselessly upon the unconscious girl. Yet he continued to run forward, stumbling and slipping on the treacherous foothold of melting snow. Esmay had reached a side door of the main building; quite naturally she entered and closed the door behind her, while the white-robed figure, after hesitating a moment, walked to a far corner of the house and disappeared. Out of the indefinite distance came the deep-throated bay of a hound. Constans turned and fled for his life. Safely astride the wall coping he looked back. All was quiet in the garden, and at that instant a light shone out at an upper window of the house. "She is safe," he told himself, and that was enough to know. As he walked slowly westward, the thought of Ulick came again to him. Had he really promised the girl that he would tell Ulick nothing? Ridiculous as it may appear, he could not remember. XVI AS IN A LOOKING-GLASS Arcadia House, while it certainly stood in need of the repairer's hand, was by no means uninhabitable, a fact which spoke well for the honesty of its old-time builders. Its oak beams, fastened together with tree-nails instead of iron spikes, were still sound, and its brick walls, unusually massive in construction, were without a crack. Most important of all, the roof, shingled with the best cypress, remained water-tight, and so protected the interior from the ruinous effects of moisture. In outward appearance, however, Arcadia House had sadly degenerated. The stucco that originally covered the outer walls had fallen away here and there, leaving unsightly patches to vex the eye, and in many of the windows the glazing had been destroyed either wholly or in part.