"None whatever, I admit it frankly; but I do suppose it all the same. In the first place the man was burning to be one of my visitors, of that I'm persuaded--and he would have been if the woman hadn't come along. And in the second, he looked a burglar every inch of him. Ella, I'll tell you what!" She brought her hand on to the table with a crash which made Ella start, "There's a mystery about this house--you mark my words and see. It's haunted--in one sense, if it isn't in another." Ella cast furtive glances over her shoulder, which were suggestive of anything but a mind at ease. "You've a comfortable way of talking, upon my word." Madge threw her arms out in front of her. "There is a mystery about the house; it's one of these old, ramshackle sort of places in which there is that kind of thing--I'm sure of it. Aren't you conscious of a sense of mystery about the place, and don't you feel it's haunted?" "Madge, if you don't stop talking like that, I'll leave the house this instant." "The notion is not altogether an agreeable one, I'll allow; but facts are----" "What's that?" "What's what?" Ella, clutching at Madge's arm, stared over her shoulder with a face white as a sheet. "Did--didn't I hear s-something in the kitchen?" "Something in the kitchen? If you did hear something in the kitchen, I'll shoot that something as dead as a door nail." Madge caught up the revolver, which she had placed on the table. "Madge, for goodness sake don't do anything rash!" "I will do something rash--if you call it rash to shoot at sight any scoundrel who ventures to intrude on my premises at this hour of the night!--and I'll do it quickly! Do you think I'm going to be played the fool with because I'm only a woman! I'll soon prove to you I'm not--that is, if it is to be proved by a little revolver practice." Madge spoke at the top of her voice, her words seeming to ring through the house with singular clearness. But whether this was done for the sake of encouraging herself and Ella, or with the view of frightening a possible foe, was an open question. She strode out of the room with an air of surprising resolution. Ella clinging to her skirts and following her, simply because she dare not be left behind. As it chanced, the kitchen door was open. Madge marched bravely into the room--only to find that her display of courage was thrown away, since the room was empty. Having made sure of this, Madge turned to Ella with a smile on her face--though her cheeks, like her friend's, were whiter than they were wont to be. "You see, we are experiencing some of the disadvantages of two lone, lorn young women being the solitary inhabitants of a rural residence--Jack Martyn scores." For answer Ella burst into tears. Madge took her in her arms--as well as she could, for the candle in one hand and the revolver in the other.