of her words and thinking
how pleased the Colonel would be later, when he heard it. "Things that
might run out and catch you some day when you're passing here alone, and
take you back a prisoner. Then you'd be a prisoner in the Empty House
all your life. Think of that!"

Miss Lake mistook the boy's silence as proof that she was taking the
right line. She enlarged upon this view of the matter, now she was so
successfully launched, and described the _Inmate of the House_ with such
wealth of detail that she felt sure her listener would never have
anything to do with the place again, and that she had "knocked out" this
particular bit of "nonsense" for ever and a day.

But to Jimbo it was a new and horrible idea that the Empty House,
haunted hitherto only by rather jolly and wonderful Red Indians,
contained a Monster who might take him prisoner, and the thought made
him feel afraid. The mischief had, of course, been done, and the terror
in his eyes was unmistakable, when the foolish governess saw her
mistake. Retreat was impossible: the boy was shaking with fear; and not
all Miss Lake's genuine sympathy, or Nixie's explanations and soothings,
were able to relieve his mind of its new burden.

Hitherto Jimbo's imagination had loved to dwell upon the pleasant side
of things invisible; but now he had been severely frightened, and his
imagination took a new turn. Not only the Empty House, but all his inner
world, to which it was in some sense the key, underwent a distressing
change. His sense of horror had been vividly aroused.

The governess would willingly have corrected her mistake, but was, of
course, powerless to do so. Bitterly she regretted her tactlessness and
folly. But she could do nothing, and to add to her distress, she saw
that Jimbo shrank from her in a way that could not long escape the
watchful eye of the mother. But, if the boy shed tears of fear that
night in his bed, it must in justice be told that she, for her part,
cried bitterly in her own room, not that she had endangered her "place,"
but that she had done a cruel injury to a child, and that she was
helpless to undo it. For she loved children, though she was quite
unsuited to take care of them. Her just reward, however, came swiftly
upon her.

A few nights later, when Jimbo and Nixie were allowed to come down to
dessert, the wind was heard to make a queer moaning sound in the ivy
branches that hung over the dining-room windows. Jimbo heard it too. He