road," Charlie conceded, and with
remarkable promptitude he led the way, turning his head over his
shoulder to remark:

"Really, if you're so nervous, you oughtn't to come here."

"I never will again--not alone, I mean."

Charlie had breasted the hill with such goodwill that they were already
at the road.

"And you're really going back?" she asked.

"Oh, just for a few minutes. I left my book in the temple--I was
reading there. She's not due for half an hour yet, you know."

"What--what happens if you see her?"

"Oh, you die," answered Charlie. "Goodnight;" and with a smile and a
nod he ran down the hill towards the Pool.

Miss Bushell, cavalierly deserted, made her way home at something more
than her usual rate of speed. She had never believed in that nonsense,
but there was certainly something white at that window--something white
that moved. Under the circumstances, Charlie really might have seen her
home, she thought, for the wood-fringed road was gloomy, and dusk
coming on apace. Besides, where was the hardship in being her escort?

Doubtless none, Charlie would have answered, unless a man happened to
have other fish to fry. The pace at which the canoe crossed the Pool
and brought up at its old moorings witnessed that he had no leisure to
spend on Miss Bushell. Leaping out, he ran up the stops into the
temple, crying in a loud whisper:

"She's gone!"

The temple was empty, and Charlie, looking round in vexation, added:

"So has she, by Jingo!"

He sat down disconsolately on the low marble seat that ran round the
little shrine.

There were no signs of the book of which he had spoken to Millie
Bushell. There were no signs of anybody whom he could have meant to
address. Stay! One sign there was: a long hat-pin lay on the floor.
Charlie picked it tip with a sad smile.

"Agatha's," he said to himself.

And yet, as everyone in the neighborhood knew, poor Agatha Merceron
went nightly to her phantom death bareheaded and with golden locks
tossed by the wind. Moreover, the pin was of modern manufacture;
moreover, ghosts do not wear--but there is no need to enter on
debatable ground; the pin was utterly modern.

"Now, if uncle Van," mused Charlie, "came here and saw this--!" He
carefully put the pin in his breast-pocket, and looked at his watch.
It was exactly Agatha Merceron's time; yet Charlie leant back on his
cold marble seat, put his hands in his pockets, and gazed up at the
ceiling with the happie