they were back in the apartment which they had first entered, and Dunstan thereupon straightened himself up, exclaiming:

"No use, boys—the other visitors have probably gone."

"I'm not so certain about that," declared Don.

"The only thing I'm certain about is that I intend to go," cried Chase, "and any one who tries to prevent it will have the privilege of bringing an assault and battery charge against me."

"The Château de Morancourt has been the center of too many stormy times for us to start another," chuckled the aviator's son.

Dunstan, standing by the big oak table, tapped upon its surface.

"Chase has stood it better than I thought," he rapped in the Morse code.

The answer he received was this:

"Yes, after a while he may surprise us all with his courage."

"You chaps are incorrigible," jerked out Chase. "I never knew before that woodpeckers kept at it both day and night."

So speaking, he made a break for the window.

Don and Dunstan trailed after him, and all lost no time in climbing outside.

"A jolly interesting experience, I call it!" exclaimed Don.

"Altogether too much so," grunted Chase, laconically.

"Suppose we return by a different route," said the art student.

They started along a wide carriage road which led between broad, level lawns dotted here and there with groups of statuary.

Before descending the slope on the opposite side of the hill, the three, with a common impulse, halted to take a last look at the ancestral home of the De Morancourts looming up against the moonlit sky.

"Maybe I wouldn't give a whole lot to know who was the second bumper into that chair!" declared Don.

"Not any more 

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