The Boucher family welcomed her back as if she had been a child of the house, and saved from death against all hope or probability.  They chided her for going into the battle and exposing herself to danger during all those hours.  They could not realize that she had meant to carry her warriorship so far, and asked her if it had really been her purpose to go right into the turmoil of the fight, or hadn’t she got swept into it by accident and the rush of the troops?  They begged her to be more careful another time.  It was good advice, maybe, but it fell upon pretty unfruitful soil.

Chapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts

Being worn out with the long fight, we all slept the rest of the afternoon away and two or three hours into the night.  Then we got up refreshed, and had supper.  As for me, I could have been willing to let the matter of the ghost drop; and the others were of a like mind, no doubt, for they talked diligently of the battle and said nothing of that other thing.  And indeed it was fine and stirring to hear the Paladin rehearse his deeds and see him pile his dead, fifteen here, eighteen there, and thirty-five yonder; but this only postponed the trouble; it could not do more.  He could not go on forever; when he had carried the bastille by assault and eaten up the garrison there was nothing for it but to stop, unless Catherine Boucher would give him a new start and have it all done over again—­as we hoped she would, this time—­but she was otherwise minded.  As soon as there was a good opening and a fair chance, she brought up her unwelcome subject, and we faced it the best we could.

We followed her and her parents to the haunted room at eleven o’clock, with candles, and also with torches to place in the sockets on the walls.  It was a big house, with very thick walls, and this room was in a remote part of it which had been left unoccupied for nobody knew how many years, because of its evil repute.

This was a large room, like a salon, and had a big table in it of enduring oak and well preserved; but the chair were worm-eaten and the tapestry on the walls was rotten and discolored by age.  The dusty cobwebs under the ceiling had the look of not having had any business for a century.

Catherine said: 

“Tradition says that these ghosts have never been seen—­they have merely been heard.  It is plain that this room was once larger than it is now, and that the wall at this end was built in some bygone time to make and fence off a narrow room there.  There is no communication anywhere with that narrow room, and if it exists—­and of that there is no reasonable doubt—­it has no light and no air, but is an absolute dungeon.  Wait where you are, and take note of what happens.”