droll, well-balanced, cynical--and oblivious to any other
national psychology than your own."

The girl's earnestness was droll.

"I am a bit hard and unsympathetic," agreed Warren softly. "I did not
mean to be so. You and I came into each other's lives in a wild unreal
way which an outsider would hardly believe possible. The truest thing
in real life is its melodramatic, unbelievable unrealism. That's where
the novelists, the poets, and the play-makers have a terrific handicap
against them. Things which happen every day would be ridiculed in
print. The great rule of actual existence is: 'It _can't_ be possible,
but it _is_!' But, while we have time, tell me my cues, for I share
your opinion of the Duke of Alva. I would never nominate him for
President!"

The girl wrung her hands nervously--the first signs he had seen of a
spiritual weakening.

"I am completely in the dark," added Jarvis; "I'm just a plain man, not
a mindreader. Let's get down to brass tacks!"

She did not understand the local idiom. But she realized that at last
she had found a sympathetic confessor.

"I hardly know where to begin. It seems absurd--in this pleasant
day-lit stateroom--to talk of ghosts. But the fact is that my family
castle is haunted."

Jarvis was lighting another cigarette from the battered silver case; he
burned his fingers, as he studied her, in surprise. Then he laughed
provokingly. "So I gathered from your amiable cousin. What kind of
specters? Of the Hamlet variety or the old maid brand?"

She answered very seriously.

"Call it anything you like. But my castle is haunted, just the same.
This is absolutely a case of facts, which mean so much to me that I
would not exaggerate _now_! My grandfather was one of the wealthiest
nobles in Spain. When he died my father went to take possession of the
family estates in Seguro. The little town--as you count populations in
America--was buzzing with weird stories of uncanny things and
supernatural happenings in the old castle on the hill. It was deserted,
after centuries of loyal occupancy. All the retainers had deserted
their posts and fled. All told of a weird, horrible thing in armor
which stalked the ancestral halls at night--of agonized groans,
clanking chains, infernal fumes of sulphur--you know how ghost stories
run?"

"I know the ghost stories, and most of the people who tell them run
because of their own yellow streaks!" retorted Warren. "But, go on,
your Highness. It's