"Hush!" said Patty. "They're coming this way now!"

The sound of running feet became audible in the kitchen above, while
bass voices were added to the shrill soprano that had sounded the former
tocsin. The men had arrived from the stables. The burglar and the ghost
regarded each other for a moment of suspended breathing; their mutual
danger drew them together. Patty hesitated an instant, while she studied
his face as it showed through the interstices of the meringue. He had
honest blue eyes and yellow curls. She suddenly stretched out a hand
and grasped him by an elbow.

"Quick! They'll be here in a minute. I know a place to hide. Come with
me."

She pushed him unresisting down a passage and into a storeroom, boarded
off from the main cellar, where the scenery of the dramatic society was
kept.

"Get down on your hands and knees and follow me," she ordered, as she
stooped low and dived behind a pile of canvas.

The man crawled after. They emerged at the farther end into a small
recess behind some canvas trees. Patty sat on a stump and offered a
wooden rock to her companion.

"They'll never think of looking here," she whispered. "Martin's too fat
to crawl through."

A small barred window let in some faint moonlight and they had an
opportunity to study each other more at leisure. The man did not yet
seem comfortable in Patty's presence; he was occupying the farthest
possible corner of his rock. Presently he rubbed his coat sleeve over
his head and looked long and earnestly at the meringue. He was
evidently at a loss to identify the substance; in the rush of events he
had taken no note of the pie.

Patty brought her one eye to bear down upon him.

"I'm simply melting!" she whispered. "Do you think you could untie that
knot?"

She bent her head and presented the back of her neck.

The man by now was partially reassured as to the humanness of his
companion, and he obediently worked at the knot but with hands that
trembled. At last it came loose, and Patty with a sigh of relief emerged
into the open. Her hair was somewhat tousled and her face was streaked
with burnt cork, but her blue eyes were as honest as his own. The sight
reassured him.

"Gee!" he muttered in a wave of relief.

"Keep still!" Patty warned.

The hunt was growing nearer. There was the sound of tramping feet in the
laundry and they could hear the men talking.

"A ghost and a burglar!" said Martin, in fine scorn. "That's a likely
combinatio