"He is sure to have gone to the left," I said to myself. "All his curiosity was to peep into the house again, and he could only do so through the _tonnelle_ and the long glass house;" so I crept along in the direction I decided upon, keeping close to the wall, between it and the shrubs which bordered it, as I have described, though it was now so dusky that my extreme precaution was scarcely called for. And before long I came to the passage between trees and bushes which we had lighted upon the last time. It was not quite so dark here, for the real entrance to the _tonnelle_ was a fairly wide one at the side, and I could still clearly see the glazed door at the other end. I stood still, gazing before me--then taking courage I advanced a few steps, still keeping my eyes fixed on the door through which I seemed to feel by instinct that the truant would make his way out. And I was not disappointed. As I approached the conservatory pretty closely, the door moved, softly and noiselessly. I would scarcely have noticed its doing so but for the faint glimmer of light on the glass panes of its upper part. And, peering cautiously to right and left, then gazing straight before him, stood the naughty boy! It took all my self-command to repress an exclamation, but I did so, only whispering--and in the silence, unbroken save for the drip of the still rain-laden leaves, even a whisper sounded portentously audible--"Moore, come at once. Don't you see me?" See me! Of course he did. His eyes as well as his ears were as sharp as a Red Indian's--I can't find a better comparison--and a smile, half-triumphant, half-impish, broke over his face as he looked at me. He nodded reassuringly, and I think he was just going to speak, when suddenly, in the flash of a lightning gleam, it seemed to me, his whole expression changed. The smile vanished, a look almost of terror came over his face; he made a frantic gesture to me, which I interpreted rightly enough to mean, "get out of the way; hide yourself," and disappeared as completely as if he had not been there at all. For half a second I stood, dazed and completely bewildered--rubbing my eyes to make sure that I _had_ seen him, that the whole thing had not been an extraordinary optical delusion, born of my nervous anxiety, or-- worse still--could it have been not Moore himself, but his ghost that I had seen? After all, what might not have happened to him in that mysterious secret house? There _was_ something abnormal about it, or rather about the lives of its inhabitants. Why, oh why had I told the boy anything about it, I thought with momentary anguish. But another instant reassured me as to this last foolish terror. It _was_ Moore himself--he had smiled in the mischievous way he sometimes did. How grateful I felt for that smile! All these thoughts, as will readily be understood by those who have gone through similar crises, had flashed across my mind in far less time than it takes to write them.