When Patsy came to herself she was still in the picture gallery. She was leaning against Miss Martha, who was engaged in holding smelling salts to her niece’s nose. To her right clustered Bee, Mabel and Eleanor, anxious, horror-filled faces fixed upon her. Back of them stood Emily, her black eyes rolling, her chocolate-colored features seeming almost pale in the brighter light the lamps now gave.

As Patsy’s gray eyes roved dully from one face to another, she became again alive to sounds which had assailed her ears at the moment when consciousness had briefly fled. She was still hearing those demoniac shrieks, mingled with savage snarls. Now there was something vaguely familiar about them. But what? Patsy could not think.

“What—is it?” she stammered. “Where—is—it?”

She had begun to realize that the horror she glimpsed in her companions’ faces had to do with those same shrieks rather than her own momentary swoon.

“It’s behind this picture.”

It was her father’s voice that grimly answered her. He stood at one side of the tarnished gilt frame, examining a rope. The rope appeared to spring from halfway down the frame, between the canvas and the frame itself. It ended in loose coils, which lay upon the floor of the gallery.

Patsy stared at the picture, from behind which rose the tumult of horrid sound. For an instant she listened intently.

“Why—why—I know who it is! It’s old Rosita. I’m sure that’s her voice.”

“So the girls here think,” replied her father. “Bee tells me you lassoed her.”

Mr. Carroll’s tones conveyed active disapproval of his daughter’s foolhardy exploit.

“I—I——” began Patsy, then became silent.

“Well, this is not the time to discuss that side of the affair,” her father continued. “There’s a secret room or cubby-hole, I don’t know which, behind the picture. Rosita is in there and can’t get out. You attended to her arms, I judge. That’s the reason for those frenzied howls. Undoubtedly she’s insane. You’ve had a very narrow escape.”

“How could she get behind the picture without the use of her arms?” broke in Bee. “There’s a secret lever to the picture, of course.”

“She may have been able to work it with her foot,” surmised Mr. Carroll. “Again, she may have purposely left the door open. There may be another way out of the place besides this one. She can’t take it as long as the rope holds. When the door closed, the rope caught. It’s tough, but then, the door must have closed with a good deal of force or it could never have shut on the rope. She’s trying to break it and can’t. That’s why she’s in such a rage. We’ve got her, but we must act quickly. I hate to leave you folks alone here. Still, I must go for help. I can bring half a dozen of my black boys here in twenty minutes. If I could be sure she’d stay as she is now until I came back——”

Mr. Carroll paused, uncertain where his strongest duty lay.

“I will go for the help, seÑor,” suddenly announced a soft voice.

Absorbed in contemplation of the problem which confronted them, no one of the little company had heard the noiseless approach down the gallery of a black-haired, bare-footed girl. She had come within a few feet of the group when her musical tones fell upon their amazed ears.

“Dolores!” exclaimed Patsy and sprang forward with extended hands. “How came you here?”

Immediately Mab, Bee and Nellie gathered around the girl with little astonished cries.

“Soon I will tell all. Now is the hurry.”

Turning to Mr. Carroll, whose fine face mirrored his astonishment at this sudden new addition to the night’s eventful happenings, she said earnestly:

“I stood in the shadow and heard your speech, seÑor. There is but one way into the secret place. It is there.” She pointed to the picture. “I bid you watch it well. She is most strong. She has the madness. Thus her strength is greater than that of three men. If you have the firearm, seÑor, I entreat you, go for it, and also send these you love to the safe room. Should she break the rope of which you have spoken she will come forth from behind the picture and kill. Now I will go and return soon with the men. You may trust me, for I will bring them. Have no fear for me, for I shall be safe.”

Without waiting for a response from Mr. Carroll, Dolores turned and darted up the gallery. An instant and she had disappeared into the adjoining corridor.

“Dolores is right,” declared Mr. Carroll. “Martha, take our girls and Emily into your room. Lock the door and stay there until I come for you. I don’t like the idea of this child, Dolores, going off into the night alone, but she went before I could stop her.”

“Oh, Dad, why can’t we stay here with you?” burst disappointedly from Patsy.

Patsy had quite recovered from her momentary mishap and was now anxious to see the exciting affair through to the end.

“That’s why.”

Mr. Carroll made a stern gesture toward the picture. From behind it now issued a fresh succession of hair-raising screams interspersed with furious repetitions of the name, “Dolores.” It was evident that Rosita had heard Dolores’ voice and, demented though she was, recognized it.

“Come with us this instant, Patsy. You have already run more than enough risks to-night.”

Miss Martha’s intonation was such as to indicate that she, too, was yet to be reckoned with.

“We’re in for it,” breathed Bee to Patsy as the two girls followed Miss Carroll, and the Perry girls out of the gallery and into the corridor which led to Miss Martha’s room. Emily, however, had declared herself as “daid sleepy” and asked permission to return to her own room instead of accepting the refuge of Miss Carroll’s.

“I don’t care,” Patsy returned in a defiant whisper. “Our plan worked. We caught the ghost. And that’s not all. What about Dolores? Did you ever bump up against anything so amazing? Now we know who the mysterious ‘she’ is. No wonder poor Dolores was afraid of her.”

Now arrived at Miss Carroll’s door, the chums had no time for further confidences. Miss Martha hustled them inside the room, hastily closed the door and turned the key.

That worthy but highly displeased woman’s next act was to sink into an easy chair and in the voice of a stern judge order Bee and Patsy to take chairs opposite her own.

“Now, Patsy, will you kindly tell me why I was not taken into your confidence regarding yours and Beatrice’s presumptuous plans? Do you realize that both of you might have been killed? What possessed you to do such a thing? I know that you are far more to blame than Beatrice, even though she insisted to me that she was equally concerned in your scheme. She merely followed your lead.”

“I’m to blame. I planned the whole thing,” Patsy frankly confessed. “I don’t know how much Bee has told you, but this is the story from beginning to end.”

Without endeavoring to spare herself in the least, Patsy began with an account of the fearsome apparition she had seen on the previous night and went bravely on to the moment when she had seen old Rosita disappear behind the picture.

“I shall never trust either of you again,” was Miss Carroll’s succinct condemnation when Patsy had finished.

“But, Auntie——”

“Don’t Auntie me,” retorted Miss Martha. “The thought of what might have happened to you both makes me fairly sick. I sha’n’t recover from the shock for a week. The best thing we can do is to pack up and go to Palm Beach. I’ve had enough of this house of horrors. Who knows what may happen next. Just listen to that!”

Briefly silent, the imprisoned lunatic had again begun to send forth long, piercing screams. For a little, painful quiet settled down on the occupants of Miss Carroll’s room. At last Eleanor spoke.

“I don’t believe anything else that’s bad will happen here, Miss Martha.”

Eleanor had come nobly forward to Patsy’s aid. Standing behind Miss Carroll’s chair, she laid a gentle hand on the irate matron’s plump shoulder. Eleanor could usually be depended upon to pour oil on troubled waters.

“Nothing further of an unpleasant nature will have time to happen here,” was the significant response.

“But nothing bad has really happened,” persisted Eleanor. “Patsy captured the ghost, who turned out to be old Rosita. Pretty soon she’ll be taken away where she can’t harm anyone. If Patsy and Bee hadn’t been awake and on the watch to-night she might have slipped in and murdered them and us.”

“Not with our doors locked and the keys in them,” calmly refuted Miss Carroll. “True, Patsy and Beatrice might have been murdered. They disobeyed me and left their door unlocked.”

This emphatic thrust had its effect on the culprits. They blushed deeply and looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

“Well, she might have gone slipping about the house in the daytime and pounced upon some of us.” Mabel now rallied to the defense. “Didn’t Mammy Luce see her cross the kitchen and disappear up the back stairs right in the middle of the day? That proves she came here in the daytime too. By those yells we just heard you can imagine how much of a chance we would have had if we’d happened to meet her roaming around the house.”

Patsy took heart at this brilliant effort on her behalf.

“That’s why I saw the cavalier picture move the other day,” she said eagerly. “Rosita had just disappeared behind it. That’s another proof she came here in the daytime.”

“Hmph! Here is something else I seem to have missed hearing,” satirically commented Miss Carroll.

“I would have told you that, truly I would have, Auntie, but I didn’t want to worry you. I thought I must have been mistaken about it at the time and so didn’t say anything. It was the day we found the book in the patio and you asked me what was the matter,” Patsy explained very humbly.

Something in the two pleading gray eyes fixed so penitently upon her, moved Miss Martha to relent a trifle. She considered herself a great deal harder-hearted than she really was.

“My dear, you and Beatrice did very wrong to conceal these things and attempt to take matters into your own hands. You are two extremely rash venturesome young girls. You are altogether too fond of leaping first and looking afterward. I must say that——”

“They’re coming!” Mabel suddenly held up her hand in a listening gesture.

Even through the closed door the tramp of heavy footsteps and the deep bass of masculine voices came distinctly to the ears of the attentive listeners. Shut in as they were, they could glean by sound alone an idea of what was transpiring in the gallery.

Soon, above the growing hum of voices, came a crashing, splintering sound, accompanied by the most ear-piercing shrieks they had yet heard. A babble of shouts arose, above which that high, piercing wail held its own. Again the tramping of feet began. The frenzied wailing grew even higher. The footsteps began to die out; the cries grew fainter and yet fainter. An almost painful silence suddenly settled down over the house.