n had evidently built the house after his own
eccentric ideas, for it contained strange rooms, connecting with one
another by little, unexpected passages, short flights of stairs, and
many winding ways. Some of the rooms might well have been secret ones,
so strangely were they tucked away.

But in two apartments on the second floor--two rooms that had evidently
been choice guest chambers--the searchers came upon signs which
indicated clearly that some one had been in them recently. There was
less dust, and in one corner was a pile of bags and rags that seemed to
indicate a bed. On the hearth--there were big fireplaces in each
room--were ashes that had been hot not many days gone by.

"Tramps!" exclaimed Mr. Blackford. "To my way of thinking tramps have
been sleeping here."

"Do you think the ghost was a tramp?" asked Mollie. "The one who caught
me?"

"He may have been."

"But why was he all in white?"

"Probably to keep up the illusion. We haven't gotten to the bottom of
this yet. Let's keep on."

But aside from the two rooms no others in the big mansion showed signs
of habitation. All were gloomy and dust-encumbered. On the first floor
nothing was discovered, and the cellar yielded no clues.

"Well, all we have established so far," said Mr. Blackford, "is that
someone has been sleeping here. Now let's keep on to the annex, and see
if we can establish a connection. It may be that the secret is there."

They found the passage that led from the mansion to the house in which
so much had happened to them that stormy night. There was a room in the
main house, whence the passage began, and this room, too, showed signs
of having been used recently.

And when they came to the place where the girls had dined so
unexpectedly they saw unmistakable signs that other meals than the one
they had helped themselves to had been eaten there.

"Our friend, the ghost, has been here since," said Mr. Blackford.
"Perhaps we shall have to set a trap for him."

They walked on, their footsteps echoing and re-echoing through the
silent old house. They were in the annex now, but a search there
revealed nothing.

The girls looked at one another, and then at Mr. Blackford. He shook his
head.

"I confess I am baffled," he said. "I did hope to find something. But we
haven't come across it. If there was a systematic effort to give the
impression that this mansion was haunted, there would have been some
evidences of it.

"I mean we w