e kitchen,
Lulie, remember that. I WON'T have her chatterin' all through our meal."

"She and Zacheus are to eat together," replied Lulie. "It is all
settled. Now if Nelson will only come. He is going to get away just as
soon as the down train leaves."

He arrived soon afterward, having bicycled over from South Wellmouth.
Primmie arrived also and bursts of her energetic conversation,
punctuated by grumblings in Mr. Bloomer's bass, drifted in from the
kitchen. Supper was a happy meal. Young Howard, questioned by Martha and
Lulie--the latter evidently anxious to "show off" her lover--told of his
experiences aboard one of Uncle Sam's transports and the narrow escape
from a German submarine. Galusha, decoyed by Miss Phipps, was led into
Egypt and discoursed concerning that marvelous country. Lulie laughed
and chatted and was engagingly charming and vivacious. Martha was her
own cheerful self and the worried look disappeared, for the time, from
her face.

After supper was over, the ladies helped Primmie clear the table while
the men sat in the sitting room and smoked. The sitting room of the
light keeper's home was even more nautical than that at the Phipps'
place. There was no less than six framed paintings of ships and
schooners on the walls, and mantel and what-not bore salt-water curios
of many kinds handed down by generations of seafaring Halletts--whales'
teeth, little ships in bottles, idols from the South Sea islands, bead
and bone necklaces, Eskimo lance-heads and goodness knows what. And
below the windows, at the foot of the bluff on the ocean side, the great
waves pounded and muttered and growled, while high above the chimneys of
the little house Gould's Bluffs light thrust its flashing spear of flame
deep into the breast of the black night.

It was almost half past eight when Martha Phipps, whose seat was near
the front window of the sitting room, held up a warning hand.

"Listen!" she cried. "Isn't that an automobile comin'?"

It undoubtedly was. Apparently more than one motor car was approaching
along the sandy road leading from the village to the lighthouse.

"Who in the world is it?" asked Martha, drawing aside the window shade
and trying to peer out. "Lulie, you don't think it can be--"

Lulie looked troubled, but she shook her head.

"No, it can't be," she declared. "The seance was to be away over in
Trumet and it is sure to last hours. They couldn't have gone as far as
that and--"

She was inte