or one thing, the deep horror of the Empty House and its owner now
returned to him with full force. Fear settled down again over the room,
and lurked in the shadows over the yard. A vivid dread seized him of the
_other door_ in the room--the door through which the Frightened Children
had disappeared, but which had never opened since. It gradually became
for him a personality in the room, a staring, silent, listening thing,
always watching, always waiting. One day it would open and he would be
caught! In a dozen ways like this the horror of the house entered his
heart and made him long for escape with all the force of his being.

But the governess, too, seemed changing; she was becoming more vague and
more mysterious. Her face was always sad now, and her eyes wistful; her
manner became restless and uneasy, and in many little ways the child
could not fail to notice that her mind was intent upon other things. He
begged her to name the day for the final flight, but she always seemed
to have some good excuse for putting it off.

"I feel frightened when you don't tell me what's going on," he said to
her.

"It's the preparations for the last flight," she answered, "the flight
of escape. He'll try to prevent us going together so that you should get
lost. But it's better you shouldn't know too much," she added. "Trust me
and have patience."

"Oh, that's what you're so afraid of," he said, "_separation_!" He was
very proud indeed of the long word, and said it over several times to
himself.

And the governess, looking out of the window at the fading sunlight,
repeated to herself more than to him the word he was so proud of.

"Yes, that's what I'm so afraid of--separation; but if it means your
salvation----" and her sentence remained unfinished as her eyes wandered
far above the tops of the trees into the shadows of the sky.

And Jimbo, drawn by the sadness of her voice, turned towards the window
and noticed to his utter amazement that he could _see right through
her_. He could see the branches of the trees _beyond_ her body.

But the next instant she turned and was no longer transparent, and
before the boy could say a word, she crossed the floor and disappeared
from the room.

CHAPTER XVI

PREPARATION

Now that he was preparing to leave it, Jimbo began to realise more fully
how things in this world of delirium--so the governess sometimes called
it--were all terribly out of order and confused. So long as he was