I was up at once, and with the sound of my footstep on the floor the low knocking ceased, to be followed immediately by sibilant whispering through the keyhole.

“Miss Rachel!  Miss Rachel!” somebody was saying, over and over.

“Is that you, Liddy?” I asked, my hand on the knob.

“For the love of mercy, let me in!” she said in a low tone.

She was leaning against the door, for when I opened it, she fell in.  She was greenish-white, and she had a red and black barred flannel petticoat over her shoulders.

“Listen,” she said, standing in the middle of the floor and holding on to me.  “Oh, Miss Rachel, it’s the ghost of that dead man hammering to get in!”

Sure enough, there was a dull thud—­thud—­thud from some place near.  It was muffled:  one rather felt than heard it, and it was impossible to locate.  One moment it seemed to come, three taps and a pause, from the floor under us:  the next, thud—­thud—­ thud—­it came apparently from the wall.

“It’s not a ghost,” I said decidedly.  “If it was a ghost it wouldn’t rap:  it would come through the keyhole.”  Liddy looked at the keyhole.  “But it sounds very much as though some one is trying to break into the house.”

Liddy was shivering violently.  I told her to get me my slippers and she brought me a pair of kid gloves, so I found my things myself, and prepared to call Halsey.  As before, the night alarm had found the electric lights gone:  the hall, save for its night lamp, was in darkness, as I went across to Halsey’s room.  I hardly know what I feared, but it was a relief to find him there, very sound asleep, and with his door unlocked.

“Wake up, Halsey,” I said, shaking him.

He stirred a little.  Liddy was half in and half out of the door, afraid as usual to be left alone, and not quite daring to enter.  Her scruples seemed to fade, however, all at once.  She gave a suppressed yell, bolted into the room, and stood tightly clutching the foot-board of the bed.  Halsey was gradually waking.

“I’ve seen it,” Liddy wailed.  “A woman in white down the hall!”

I paid no attention.

“Halsey,” I persevered, “some one is breaking into the house.  Get up, won’t you?”

“It isn’t our house,” he said sleepily.  And then he roused to the exigency of the occasion.  “All right, Aunt Ray,” he said, still yawning.  “If you’ll let me get into something—­”

It was all I could do to get Liddy out of the room.  The demands of the occasion had no influence on her:  she had seen the ghost, she persisted, and she wasn’t going into the hall.  But I got her over to my room at last, more dead than alive, and made her lie down on the bed.

The tappings, which seemed to have ceased for a while, had commenced again, but they were fainter.  Halsey came over in a few minutes, and stood listening and trying to locate the sound.