"Somebody is playing a joke on us, I believe!" Bart declared, and anger came to drive out the superstitious feeling that had shaken him. "I'm going to take a look round the house myself, and if I find anybody——"
"I'll go with you!" Merry exclaimed, and both leaped through the open window.
They circled round the house, looked down the paths and out over the sward on which the moonlight fell, but not a form could they see.
"Give it up!" Hodge admitted. "I don't know what to think."
They came back to the window, and again they heard the footsteps in the corridor. Hodge went through the window at a flying leap and hurled open the corridor door, only to again find silence and blankness.
"The place is haunted!" he exclaimed.
"But there are no such things as ghosts!"
"I know it. Of course, there can't be—that's what I have always believed. I have always fancied that stories of ghosts were lies and foolishness, and I'm not ready to back water on that belief. But I can't understand this business."
"Nor I."
"Shall we call the landlord again?"