id pushed harder than he knew. The lock
on the old door gave way. It fell forward, striking the floor with a
terrific crash.

Phyllis screamed with horror, then turned rigid. Not one of the others
made a single sound, except that Madge's lantern dropped to the floor at
her feet and her light went out.

An old man rose slowly from the side of a tumbled bed. He was so thin,
so white, so ethereal that he could not be human. But the four pair of
frightened eyes strained past the ghostly old man to a thin wraith that
lay on the bed. It was a girl, frail, white and wasted, staring not at
the intruders before the fallen door, but at an object that she seemed
to see afar off.

Madge's voice caught in her throat. Her knees trembled and she swayed
helplessly toward Phil. If only she and Phil could have run from the
sight before them! But they stood stupidly still, unable to move. There
was absolutely not a ray of light in the ghostly bedroom, save that
which came from the reflection of the dark lanterns in the hall. David
had jumped back when the door fell before him. But Miss Betsey's tall,
thin figure, in her queer, military coat, cast a long black shadow
across the old room. Why did not some one speak? Ghosts can not talk
and the onlookers were dumb with fear and amazement.

Then the ghost laughed drearily. "You have found me out," it said
mournfully. "I have no place, even in this house of darkness. I can not
see your faces. But I wonder why you wish to disturb an old man's last
retreat?"

For answer, Madge burst into tears. She was nervous and overwrought, and
to find that "the ghost" was a real person was more than she could bear.

"We didn't know there was any one living in the house," she faltered.
"We are strangers in this neighborhood. The people about here told us
that this old place was haunted, and we came to-night to see if ghosts
were real."

"Come in and bring your lights," invited the old gentleman. "There are
many kinds of ghosts, child. I will tell you who I am."

The four visitors crowded into the musty room. Phyllis and Madge had
their eyes fixed on the girl's figure in the bed. She did not return
their look, although the muscles of her face were twitching
pathetically.

Miss Betsey Taylor was behaving very curiously. She held her dark
lantern up so that its light fell full on the white face of the old man
whom they had so rudely disturbed.

"Bless my soul!" she murmured out loud, "it _can't_ be!