Miss Betsey caught Madge by the hand. "I can almost see dead people sitting in those dusty chairs," she murmured. "Let us go on upstairs. I wish this thing were over."
The railing had fallen away from the steps, that were covered not only with dust but with a kind of slippery mould, as many winters' rain had fallen down upon them from the holes in the roof. David crawled up first, pulling Madge, Phyllis and Miss Betsey after him. They groped their way to the front bedroom.
"I won't go in there; I shall wait here in the hall," Phil said pettishly. "I can't help thinking of Harry Sears's story about the sick girl in that old house on Cape Cod."
David shoved at the closed door. It was fastened tight. Had the room been locked against intruders for nearly half a century? But ghosts do not hesitate at closed doors. David pushed harder than he knew. The lock on the old door gave way. It fell forward, striking the floor with a terrific crash.
Phyllis screamed with horror, then turned rigid. Not one of the others made a single sound, except that Madge's lantern dropped to the floor at her feet and her light went out.
An old man rose slowly from the side of a tumbled bed. He was so thin, so white, so ethereal that he could not be human. But the four pair of frightened eyes strained past the ghostly old man to a thin wraith that lay on the bed. It was a girl, frail, white and wasted, staring not at the intruders before the fallen door, but at an object that she seemed to see afar off.
Madge's voice caught in her throat. Her knees trembled and she swayed helplessly toward Phil. If only she and Phil could have run from the sight before them! But they stood stupidly still, unable to move. There was absolutely not a ray of light in the ghostly bedroom, save that which came from the reflection of the dark lanterns in the hall. David had jumped back when the door fell before him. But Miss Betsey's tall, thin figure, in her queer, military coat, cast a long black shadow across the old room. Why did not some one speak? Ghosts can not talk and the onlookers were dumb with fear and amazement.
Then the ghost laughed drearily. "You have found me out," it said mournfully. "I have no place, even in this house of darkness. I can not see your faces. But I wonder why you wish to disturb an old man's last retreat?"
For answer, Madge burst into tears. She was nervous and overwrought, and to find that "the ghost" was a real person was more than she could bear.
"We didn't know there was any one living in the house," she faltered. "We are strangers in this neighborhood. The people about here told us that this old place was haunted, and we came to-night to see if ghosts were real."