He laughed strangely. But it was the thought of the detectives with the two odd women from the strawberry patch that occasioned the mirth.
“You must not laugh at us, Jack. It really was not a bit funny.”
Jack put his arm about his sister. For one brief moment they stood there in the clear moonlight.
“Well, I must retire,” said Cora, “although I feel more like sitting the night out. Good-night, Jack dear. We must be up with——”
She stopped. “What was that?” asked the young man, as a slight figure seemed to glide over the path at the very edge of the steps they stood facing.
“It—looked like a boy,—no, a girl,” replied Cora, instinctively clutching her brother’s arm.
“There it goes,” Jack indicated, as the figure almost disappeared in the thick hedge. “I thought at first the boys might be up to some prank, but that ‘ghost’ walks too firmly to be a spirit.”
“Queer for a girl to be out at this hour,” reflected Cora. “I wonder who it can be, and what does she want, prowling about after midnight?”
“Want me to investigate?”
“What; run after it?”