forward at a half run that sent the lantern's
rays lurching and dancing in a way that confused the hawk eyes. Then her
burst of strength seemed to give out in collapse and she dropped against
the wall for support, her back covering the panel door.

"I can't! I'm just foolishly, weakly feminine!" she whispered brokenly.
"According to reason there aren't any ghosts, I know. But it gets on my
nerves too much-my imaginings!" She held out the lantern with a
trembling hand. "I will wait here. You go on in!" she begged. "Please do
and show me what a fool I am! Show that it is all a woman's
hysteria--for we are all hysterical, aren't we? Go into every dungeon,
please!"

She did seem on the verge of hysteria, quivering as die was from head to
foot. But Bouchard, holding the lantern and staring at her, his eyes
unearthly lustrous in the yellow rays, hesitated to agree to the request
because it was hers. Marta was not so near hysteria that she did not
divine his thought.

"Has it got on your nerves, too?" she inquired. "Are you, too, afraid?"

"No, I'm not afraid!" replied Bouchard irritably. "But aren't you afraid
to be left alone in the dark? I'll take you back to the sitting-room and
you can wait there," he added with a show of gallantry, which she
improved on with a flattering if scared smile.

"I'm not afraid with you between me and the dungeons," she said. "I'll
hold my ground. Don't think me altogether a craven."

"Very well," was all that he could say. "I came to see the dungeons, and
I'll see them!"

After the lantern flame grew fainter and finally disappeared around a
bend, Marta emitted a peculiar, squeaky little laugh. It sounded to her
as if her own ghost--the ghost of her former self--were laughing in
satire. There was a devilish, mischievous joy in battling to outwit
Bouchard more than in her deceit of Westerling. Satire,
yes--needle-pointed, acid-tipped! Melodrama done in burlesque, too. In
the name of the noble art of war, a bit of fooling about ghosts in a
tunnel might influence the fate of armies that were the last word in
modern equipment. And men played at killing with a grand front of
martial dignity, when such a little thing could turn the balance of
slaughter! The ghosts in the dungeons seemed about as real as anything,
except the childishness of adult humanity in organized mass. She laughed
again, this time very softly, as she moved away from the panel door a
few steps farther along the wall toward