"I'll go back with you," said I.

We had fallen a few steps behind the others, but somehow they divined
our purpose and stopped, too.

"You needn't," said Tim. "I'll only be a minute."

"But I've something to tell you--a secret--and Mary----"

He was gone.

"I'll be back in a minute," he called. "Go on home."

He was lost in the darkness, and I started after him.

"Ain't you comin'?" cried Nanny Pulsifer.

"I must go back to Warden's," I answered.

"Then we'll go with you," said Mrs. Spiker firmly.

"Can't you go on home?" I said testily. "There's no use of your
troubling yourself further."

"Does you think we'll walk by that graveyard alone?" demanded the
tavern-keeper's wife.

"But there are no ghosts," I argued.