* * * * *

At eight o’clock, four hours before Lon Cronk opened his heart to his companions, Scraggy, footsore and weary, entered Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and seated herself on the damp earth to gather strength.  By begging and stealing she had managed to reach her destination; but now for the first time on this journey the bats were in her head, sounding the walls of her poor brain with the ceaseless clatter of their wings.  Still the mother heart called for its own, through the madness—­called for one sight of Lem’s child and hers.  At length after a long rest she turned into a broad path which she knew well, and did not halt until she was staring eager-eyed into the window of Harold Brimbecomb’s house which stood close to the cemetery.

[Illustration:  For Midge’s sake.]

To the left of the Brimbecomb’s was the mansion, belonging to the orphans of Horace Shellington.  The young Horace and his sister Ann were the favorite companions of Everett Brimbecomb, now six years old.  He was a strong, proud, handsome lad.  Many conjectures had been made concerning him by the Tarrytown people, because one day five years before the delicate, light-haired wife of Mr. Brimbecomb had appeared with a dark-haired baby boy, announcing that from that day on he would take the place of her own child who had died a few months before.  No person had told Everett that the millionaire was not his father, nor was he made to understand that the mother and the home were not his by right of birth.  His bright mind and handsome appearance were the pride of his adopted mother’s life, and his rich father smiled only the more leniently when the lad showed a rebellious spirit.  In the child’s dark, limpid eyes slumbered primeval passions, needing but the dawn of manhood to break forth, perhaps to destroy the soul beneath their reckless domination.

Everett was entertaining Ann and Horace Shellington at dinner, and after the repast the youngsters betook themselves to the large square room given to the young host’s own use.  Here were multitudinous playthings and mechanical toys of all descriptions.  For many minutes the children had been too interested to note that the shadows were grown long and that a somber gloom had settled down over the cemetery that lay just beyond the windows.

Ann Shellington, a delicate little creature of eight, looked up nervously.  “Everett, draw down the curtain,” she said.  “It looks so ghostly out there!”

Ann made a motion toward the window; but the boy did not obey her.

“Isn’t that just like a girl, Horace?” he asked.  “I’m not afraid of ghosts.  Dead people can’t walk, can they, Horace?”

The other boy answered “No” thoughtfully, as he started a miniature train across the length of the room.

“Then who is it that walks in the night out there?” insisted the girl.  “Lots of town people have seen it.  It’s a woman with shaggy hair, and sometimes her eyes turn green.”