at do we get out of it? I have nobody of my own age
to talk to. How the years are passing! After a while--I'll be--an old
maid. I'm twenty-one now!" I heard a sob. Her pretty head was bowed in
her hands.

Desperately I seized the bars of the window and miraculously they
parted. I leaned across the sill and drew her hands gently down.

"Listen to me," I said. "If I break in and steal you away from this,
will you go?"

"Go?" she said. "Where?"

"My aunt lives at Seven Oaks, less than an hour from here by train. You
can stay there till your father comes to his reason."

"It's quite like father _never_ to come to his reason," she reflected.
"Then I should have to be self-supporting. Of course, I should
appreciate employment in a candy shop--I think I know all the principal
kinds."

"Will you go?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied simply, "I'll go. But how can I get away from here?"

"To-night," I said, "is Christmas Eve, when Pierrepont the Ghost is
supposed to walk along the wall--right under this window. You don't
believe that fairy story, do you?"

"No."

"Neither do I. But can't you see? The haunted wall begins at my window
on one end of the castle and ends at your window on the other. The bars
of your cell, I see, are nearly all loose."

"Yes," she laughed, "I pried them out with a pair of scissors."

I could hear Hobson's voice across the court giving orders to servants.

"Your father's coming. Remember to-night," I whispered.

"Midnight," she said softly, smiling out at me. I could have faced
flocks and flocks of dragons for her at that moment. The old man was
coming nearer. I swung to the ground and escaped into a ruined court.

Well, the hours that followed were anxious and busy for me. I worked in
the glamour of romance like a soldier about to do some particularly
brave and foolish thing. From the window of my room I looked down on the
narrow, giddy wall below. It _was_ a brave and foolish thing. Among the
rubbish in an old armory I found a coil of stout rope, forty or fifty
feet of it. This I smuggled away. From a remote hall I borrowed a
Crusader's helmet and spent the balance of the afternoon in my room
practicing with a sheet across my shoulders, shroud-fashion.

We dined grandly at eight, the old man and I. He drank thirstily and
chatted about the ghost, as you might discuss the chances in a coming
athletic event. After what seemed an age he looked at his watch and
cried: "Whillikens! Eleven o'