Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/100



stair-well was a wide and long opening and around it ran a broad balustrade. There was no stairway to the third floor of this big bungalow, only the servants' staircase in the rear reaching those rooms directly under the roof. So the hall on this second floor, out of which the family bedrooms opened, was an L-shaped room, with the balustrade on one hand.

And upon that balustrade Ruth Fielding beheld a tottering figure in white, plainly visible in the soft glow of the single light burning below, yet rather ghostly after all.

She might have been startled in good earnest had she not first of all recognized Isadore Phelps' face. He was balancing himself upon the balustrade and, as she came to the door, he walked gingerly along the narrow strip of moulding toward Ruth.

"Izzy! whatever are you doing?" she hissed.

The boy never said a word to her, but kept right on, balancing himself with difficulty. He