But the smile called up by his words froze on her lips. She crossed to the window and stood with her back to the fading light, avoiding his eyes.
"My case, Jimbo, is a little different from yours," she said presently. "The important thing is to make certain about your escape. Never mind about me."
"But escape without you is nothing," he said, the Older Self now wholly in possession. "I simply wouldn't go. I'd rather stay here—with you."
The governess made no reply, but she turned her back to the room and leaned out of the window. Jimbo fancied he heard a sob. He felt a great big heart swelling up within his little body, and he crossed over beside her. For some minutes they stood there in silence, watching the stars that were already shining faintly in the sky.
"Whatever happens," he said, nestling against her, "I shan't go from here without you. Remember that!"
He was going to say a lot more, but somehow or other, when she stooped over to kiss his head—he hardly came up to her shoulder—it all ran suddenly out of his mind, and the little child dropped back into possession again. The tide of his thoughts that seemed about to rise, fast and furious, sank away completely, leaving his mind a clean-washed slate without a single image; and presently, without any more words, the governess left him and went through the trap-door into the silence and mystery of the house below.
Several hours later, about the middle of the night, there came over him a most disagreeable sensation of nausea and dizziness. The ground rose and fell beneath his feet, the walls swam about sideways, and the ceiling slid off into the air. It only lasted a few minutes, however, and Jimbo knew from what she had told him that it was the Flying Sickness which always followed the first long flight.
But, about the same time, another little body, lying in a night-nursery bed, was being convulsed with a similar attack; and the sickness of the little prisoner in the Empty House had its parallel, strangely enough, in the half-tenanted body miles away in a different world.