“It came from the garden of the gray house,” was the quick retort; and then, crossly, “I do wish, Helen, you would wait—you’ll spoil the whole thing if you don’t let me tell it properly.”
Grace, who had been listening intently to the Sport’s recital, looked up quickly and encountered a glance from Nathalie’s eyes as she suddenly turned from Edith and looked across the circle at Grace to see if she had heard. But Grace, whose memory was still rankling with her adventure at the gray house, was afraid that if the girls knew they would plague her unmercifully for being a runaway, and hastily put her hand on her lips in warning not to tell what had happened to them.
Nathalie nodded loyally and then turned to hear Edith repeat, “Yes, the noise came from the garden of the gray house, I have always told you there was something queer about that place. At first I started to run away, and then I thought, ‘O pshaw! whatever it is, it won’t hurt me behind those high walls.’ So I walked close up to the wall near one corner to see if I could not manage to climb up in some way and look into the garden. I had just spied a tiny hole in the lower part of the wall—I guess some boys had made it, you know they are always spying about that place, anyway—when I heard loud breathing. I looked up and saw a man creeping stealthily around the corner of the wall, as if dodging some one. Well, I just gave one look at him, he had great black, burning kind of eyes, staring out of a face as white as a corpse. He suddenly spied me, and by the uncanny glare he gave I knew right off he was the one who had been shrieking, he was the crazy man who lives there! Great guns! but I didn’t wait to take another look, I took to my heels and flew. Then I heard steps thumping behind me—looked back—oh, girls,” she shrieked hysterically, “he was chasing me, running after me as hard as he could!”
She gulped, and then with a gasp continued, “Oh, for a moment I thought I was doomed, but—well—you know I can run, and I did, for my life. I ran every step of the way here—and—oh, I’m so hungry! Have you had the feast yet?”
“What became of the man?” inquired Helen tersely.
“Oh, yes, what became of him?” added one or two others.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” asserted Miss Edith carelessly. “All I know is that he is as crazy as a loon, and that he lives in the gray house.”
“Edith,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow sharply, “as long as you did not see the man come from the gray house do not say he lives there; and as for saying he is crazy, that is absurd. That is just an idle report; do not repeat it until you have proof that what you say is correct. He was probably a tramp, and may have been chased from the garden by one of the servants.” Mrs. Morrow’s face showed keenly her annoyance and disbelief in Edith’s surmise.
“But what could the screams have been?” asked Helen, wonderingly, “if they really came from the garden?”
“Oh, I am sure they did,” asserted the Sport positively, “for I have heard other people say that they have heard queer noises coming from that place. But girls,” she exclaimed, as if anxious to dismiss the subject, “do tell me what you have been doing. Oh, I did so hate to miss all the fun.”