bo's case it was curiously
exaggerated. This may have been because he had no standard of memory by
which to test the succession of minutes; but, whatever it was, the hours
passed very quickly, and the evening shadows were already darkening the
room when at length he got up from the mattress and went over to the
window.

Outside the high elms were growing dim; soon the stars would be out in
the sky. The afternoon had passed away like magic, and the governess
still left him alone; he could not quite understand why she went away
for such long periods.

The darkness came down very swiftly, and it was night almost before he
knew it. Yet he felt no drowsiness, no desire to yawn and get under
sheets and blankets; sleep was evidently out of the question, and the
hours slipped away so rapidly that it made little difference whether he
sat up all night or whether he slept.

It was his first night in the Empty House, and he wondered how many more
he would spend there before escape came. He stood at the window, peering
out into the growing darkness and thinking long, long thoughts. Below
him yawned the black gulf of the yard, and the outline of the enclosing
wall was only just visible, but beyond the elms rose far into the sky,
and he could hear the wind singing softly in their branches. The sound
was very sweet; it suggested freedom, and the flight of birds, and all
that was wild and unrestrained. The wind could never really be a
prisoner; its voice sang of open spaces and unbounded distances, of
flying clouds and mountains, of mighty woods and dancing waves; above
all, of wings--free, swift, and unconquerable wings.

But this rushing song of wind among the leaves made him feel too sad to
listen long, and he lay down upon the bed again, still thinking,
thinking.

The house was utterly still. Not a thing stirred within its walls. He
felt lonely, and began to long for the companionship of the governess;
he would have called aloud for her to come only he was afraid to break
the appalling silence. He wondered where she was all this time and how
she spent the long, dark hours of the sleepless nights. Were all these
things really true that she told him? Was he actually out of his body,
and was his name really Jimbo? His thoughts kept groping backwards, ever
seeking the other companions he had lost; but, like a piece of stretched
elastic too short to reach its object, they always came back with a snap
just when he seemed on the poin