Barbara was left in a great state of bewilderment. Something was evidently going to happen to Jill, and it was apparently intended to save her from something that was much worse; but what it all meant was a mystery to her, and there was no one about to give her any more details. The three conspirators were careful to keep out of her way, and she did not see any more of them until after lunch, when they raced out of the front door and disappeared in the direction of the nine-acre field.
‘I’m going to leave you for half an hour,’ said Jill, when Barbara had finished her midday meal. ‘Bobbin has been worrying me all dinner-time to go and look at a baby rabbit he has found, so I promised to run down to the barn and meet him there. Do you mind?’
Barbara said she did not mind at all; and she was left behind, consumed with curiosity as to whether Jill was really going to be locked into the barn, and whether it really could be for her good, as the boys had said, and whether Jill would be angry with them for doing it or would give them her lifelong gratitude. Somehow, Babs did not believe in the lifelong gratitude much; it did not seem likely that Jill would be grateful to any one for shutting her up in a dark and dirty barn for a whole afternoon, even if it was to save her from an awful fate that still remained to be explained. As she thought about it, Babs even began to wonder if she had been right in promising not to warn Jill. But then, if it was to save her from an awful fate, as Peter declared it was, it would have been very unkind to keep her from going down to the barn.
She gave up trying to reason it out, and hoped it was all a joke, and that Jill would come back again at the end of half an hour. But more than half an hour passed by, and still she did not come back. Everything suddenly grew very dull. The garden looked more deserted than usual, and after the pony carriage had come round and taken Finny and Auntie Anna and Egbert for a drive, there was not another sound to break the stillness. Babs began to feel neglected; she had not once been left alone like this, ever since she was first taken ill, and she found it extremely depressing. If it was really necessary for the future happiness of Jill that she should be kept in the barn all the afternoon, some one else might have been told off to take her place in the sickroom. Besides, as the afternoon wore on, the little invalid realised with some sadness that unless Jill did come in, there would be no one to get her tea ready; and she wanted her tea rather badly.
At last, to her intense relief, a thump came at the door, and Kit rushed unceremoniously into the room.
‘Where’s Jill?’ he demanded hurriedly.
‘I wish I knew for certain, but I don’t,’ said Barbara, plaintively.
‘Then they’ve done it!’ exclaimed Kit, in a tragic tone, and he dropped into a chair and looked at her.
‘Done what?’ inquired Babs, eagerly. Kit’s behaviour was as remarkable as every one else’s to-day, so perhaps she was going to get at the truth at last.
‘Locked her up in the barn!’ gasped Kit. ‘They said they were going to, yesterday, but I thought they were only rotting. I told ’em it wasn’t good enough, and I’d have nothing to do with it, so I s’pose that’s why they didn’t tell me any more. And then, I forgot all about it; and after dinner to-day I went into Finny’s study to read a stunning book I’d found there; and I didn’t think of anything, till it suddenly struck me how awfully quiet everything was. If she’s disappeared, they must have done it, stupid owls!’