There was a brief eloquent silence when Nevius finished his story.  The girls shivered.

“A true story?” queried David, smiling.

“A true story,” said Nevius decidedly.

“Um-hum.  Lover was alone in the woods, wasn’t he?  How did his friends find out about those midnight spirits that came and killed him?”

The girls brightened.  “Yes, of course,” chirped Carol.  “How did folks find out?’

“Say, be reasonable,” begged Nevius.  “Spoiling another good story.  I say it is a true tale, and I ought to know.  I,” he shouted triumphantly, “I was Lover.”

Hooting laughter greeted him.

“But just the same,” contended Barrows, “regardless of the feeble fabrications of senile minds, there are ghosts none the less.  The night before we got word of my father’s death, my sister woke up in the night and saw a white shadow in her window,—­and a voice,—­father’s voice,—­said, ‘Stay with me, Flossie; I don’t want to be alone.’  She told about it at breakfast, and said it was just five minutes to two o’clock.  And an hour later we got a message that father had died at two that night, a thousand miles away.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes, honestly.”

“I knew a woman in Chicago,” said Miss Landbury, “and she said the night before her mother died she lay down on the cot to rest, and a white shadow came and hovered over the bed, and she saw in it, like a dream, all the details of her mother’s death just as it happened the very next day.  She swore it was true.”

“Don’t talk any more about white shadows,” said Carol.  “They make me nervous.”

“Wouldn’t it be ghastly to wake up alone in a little wind-blown canvas tent in the dead of night, and find it shut off from the world by a white shadow, and hear a low voice whisper, ‘Come,’ and feel yourself drawn slowly into the shadow by invisible clammy fingers—­”

“Don’t,” cried Miss Landbury.

“That’s not nice,” said Carol.

“Don’t scare the girls, Barrows.  Carol will sleep under the bed to-night.”

“I am with the girls myself,” said Gooding.  “There isn’t any sense getting yourself all worked up talking about spirits and ghosts and things that never happened in the world.”

“Oh, they didn’t, didn’t they?  Just the same, when you reach out for a cough-drop and get hold of a bunch of clinging fingers that aren’t yours, and are not connected with anybody that belongs there,—­well, I for one don’t take any chances with ghosts.”

A sudden brisk tap on the door drew a startled movement from the men and a frightened cry from the girls.  The door opened and the head nurse stood before them.

“Ten-fifteen,” she said curtly.  “Please go to your cottages at once.  Mr. Duke, why don’t you send your company home at ten o’clock?”

“Bad manners.  Ministers need hospitality more than religion nowadays, they tell us.”