Ruth wondered much what manner of home she could have come from, why she had run away from it, and what Nita really proposed doing so far from home and friends. These queries kept the girl from the Red Mill awake for a long time–added to which was the excitement of the evening, which was not calculated to induce sleep.
She would have dropped off some time after the other girls, however, had she not suddenly heard a door latch somewhere on this upper floor, and then the creep, creep, creeping of a rustling step in the hall. It continued so long that Ruth wondered if one of the girls in the other room was ill, and she softly arose and went to the door, which was ajar. And what she saw there in the hall startled her.
CHAPTER XII
BUSY IZZY IN A NEW ASPECT
The stair-well was a wide and long opening and around it ran a broad balustrade. There was no stairway to the third floor of this big bungalow, only the servants’ staircase in the rear reaching those rooms directly under the roof. So the hall on this second floor, out of which the family bedrooms opened, was an L-shaped room, with the balustrade on one hand.
And upon that balustrade Ruth Fielding beheld a tottering figure in white, plainly visible in the soft glow of the single light burning below, yet rather ghostly after all.
She might have been startled in good earnest had she not first of all recognized Isadore Phelps’ face. He was balancing himself upon the balustrade and, as she came to the door, he walked gingerly along the narrow strip of moulding toward Ruth.
“Izzy! whatever are you doing?” she hissed.
The boy never said a word to her, but kept right on, balancing himself with difficulty. He was in his pajamas, his feet bare, and–she saw it at last–his eyes tight shut.
“Oh! he’s asleep,” murmured Ruth.