"Right you are," Don exclaimed. "What's the use of theory? Can you lead us to where you saw him, Willie?" "Ye-es, of course." The sixteen-year-old Willie was shaking again. "W-what's that for, Mr. Don?" Don had picked up a shotgun which was standing in a corner of the room. "Ain't no--no use of that, Mr. Don." "We'll take it anyway, Willie. Ready, Bob?" A step sounded behind us. "Where are you going?" It was Jane Dorrance, Don's cousin. She stood in the doorway. Her long, filmy white summer dress fell nearly to her ankles. Her black hair was coiled on her head. In her bodice was a single red poinsettia blossom. As she stood motionless, her small slight figure framed against the dark background of the hall, she could have been a painting of an English beauty save for the black hair suggesting the tropics. Her blue-eyed gaze went from Don to me, and then to the gun. "Where are you going?" "Willie saw a ghost." Don grinned. "They've come from Somerset, Jane. I say, one of them seems to be right here." "Where?" "Willie saw it down by the Fort Beach." "To-night?" "Yes. Just now. So he says, though it's all rot, of course." "Oh," said Jane, and she became silent. * * * * * She appeared to be barring our way. It seemed to me, too, that the color had left her face, and I wondered vaguely why she was taking it so seriously. That was not like Jane: she was a level-headed girl, not at all the sort to be frightened by Negroes talking of ghosts. She turned suddenly on Willie. The colored boy had been employed in the Dorrance household since childhood. Jane herself was only seventeen, and she had known Willie here in this same big white stone house, almost from infancy. "Willie, what you saw, was it a--a man?" "Yes," said the boy eagerly. "A man. A great big man. All white an' shinin'." "A man with a hood? Or a helmet? Something like a queer-looking hat on his head, Willie?" "Jane!" expostulated Don. "What do you mean?" "I saw him--saw it," said Jane nervously. "Good Lord!" I exclaimed. "You did? When? Why didn't you tell us?" "I saw it last night." She smiled faintly. "I didn't want to add to these wild tales. I thought it was my imagination. I had been asleep--I fancy I was dreaming of ghosts anyway." "You saw it--" Don prompted. "Outside my bedroom window. Some time in the middle of the night. The moon was out and the--the man was all white and shining, just as Willie says." "But your bedroom," I protested. "Good Lord, your bedroom is on the upper floor."