Bertram Chesleigh laughed long and merrily, and the little girl awoke to a sense of her imprudence.
"Oh? I should not have talked to you so," she cried. "They will be very angry. Oh, please don't tell anyone I was the ghost! Grandpa would scold me, and I could not bear that."
At that moment the murmur of voices and laughter was borne to them on the breeze from the hall door.
"Your friends are coming to look for you," she cried. "Oh! do let go my hand. I must hide myself. You will not betray my secret?"
"No; I will keep it faithfully, Golden," he replied, then he kissed her small hand and released her, for he did not wish his friends to find him with her.
She darted away like a bird, and hid herself in the shrubbery. The young man lighted a cigar and turned back to meet his friends.
"Did you catch the ghost? Did you kiss her?" they asked him, eagerly.
"I was never so outwitted in my life," he replied. "Would you believe it if I should tell you that I pursued her across the lawn to the border of the lake, and that just as I might have touched her with my hand she sprang into the water and not a ripple on the surface showed where she had gone down?"
This clever and non-committal reply was accepted as a statement of facts by the credulous. The romantic story spread from one to another rapidly.
Bertram Chesleigh found himself quite a hero a few minutes after he had returned to the house. But though they praised his bravery, everyone chaffed him because he had failed to get the kiss from the beautiful phantom.