"Old wives' tales," Donaldson reassured her in an undertone.
"This has been lately?" he inquired of the driver.
"Off an' on in th' last few weeks."
Donaldson turned to the girl whose features had grown fixed again in that same old gloom of haunting fear.
"They circulate such yarns as those about every closed house," he said.
"Those lights and shadows are n't made by ghosts," she whispered.
"Then—that's so," he answered with sudden understanding. "It's the boy himself!"
At the barred lane which swept in a curve out of sight from the road he dismissed the driver. Even if they were successful in their quest, it would probably be necessary to straighten out Arsdale before allowing him to be seen. But as an afterthought he turned back and ordered the man to call here for them in time to make the afternoon train.
He lowered the rails, and Miss Arsdale led the way without hesitation along a grass-grown road and through an old orchard. The trees were scraggly and untrimmed, littered with dead branches, but Spring, the mother, had decked them with green leaves and buds until they looked as jaunty as old people going to a fair. The sun sifted through the tender sprigs to the sprouting soil beneath, making there the semblance of a choice rug of a green and gold pattern. The bungalow stood upon the top of a small hill, concealed from the road. It was of rather attractive appearance, though sadly in need of repair. All the windows were curtained and there was no sign of life. The broad piazza which ran around three sides of it was cluttered with dead leaves.