Babe hesitated a moment longer, and then, pocketing her pride, she fled up the path to the castle. Out of the wood she ran, across the grassy slope, and up the winding stone stairs, as if she thought the ghost was close behind her. Near the top of the flight she paused for breath. “Don’t care if they did see me,” she muttered angrily, brushing the hair out of her face and assuring herself that the ghost had not followed. “It’s a mean trick to scare any one like that. It’s dangerous, really it is.” But they hadn’t seen her mad race through the wood. Apparently they hadn’t even missed her. They were all, the whole six of them, Madeline included, gathered in an eager group around the signal-fire, which wouldn’t burn, in spite of John’s most valiant efforts, because the wind was so strong.
“Oh, Babe, was there any alcohol left?” asked Madeline, glancing up as Babe came toward them. She was stooping in front of the beacon-holder, with her skirt spread out to shelter the struggling little flame. “I don’t think there could be any harm in pouring a little on this wood, do you, Mrs. Hildreth?” she went on. “There’s nothing up here to take fire.”
“I don’t remember noticing about the alcohol,” answered Babe, making a valiant effort not to catch her breath.
“I’ll go and look,” volunteered Betty.
“No, let me.” John sprang forward.
“You’d never find the flask,” objected Betty, “or if you did you’d mix up everything in the tea-basket.”
“Then we’ll go together,” said John, and Babe breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t have let Betty go back there alone without warning her and she hated to admit that she had been frightened by—what could it have been anyway, since it wasn’t Madeline in Mrs. Hildreth’s white shawl? Mrs. Hildreth had on her shawl at that very moment.
Betty and John were gone some time, and when they finally appeared Babe knew at once that they had seen the lady in white.
“Oh, Babbie,” Betty began tremulously, “there is a ghost attached to your castle—or at least a something. It’s down in the edge of the wood, near the lawn where we left the basket. And it’s moaning in the most horrible way.”
“Truly?” Babbie appealed to John.