“It’s Grandfather; he knows I’ve got his stick. He wants it!” On the

heels of this flashed instantly another amazing certainty. “He sleeps

in there.

He’s having dreams. That’s what being dead means.”

His first impulse, then, took the form of, “I must let Father know;

it’ll make him burst for joy”; but his second was for himself—to

finish his adventure. And it was this, naturally enough, that gained

the day. He could tell his father later. His first duty was plainly to

go through the door into the Other Wing. He must give the stick back

to its owner. He must hand it back.

The test of will and character came

now. Tim had imagination, and so knew the meaning of fear; but there

was nothing craven in him. He could howl and scream and stamp like any

other person of his age when the occasion called for such behaviour,

but such occasions were due to temper roused by a thwarted will, and

the histrionics were half “pretended” to produce a calculated effect.

There was no one to thwart his will at present. He also knew how to be

afraid of Nothing, to be afraid without ostensible cause, that

is—which was merely “nerves.” He could have “the shudders” with the

best of them.

But, when a real thing faced him, Tim’s character emerged to meet

it. He would clench his hands, brace his muscles, set his teeth—and

wish to heaven he was bigger. But he would not flinch. Being

imaginative, he lived the worst a dozen times before it happened, yet

in the final crash he stood up like a man. He had that highest

pluck—the courage of a sensitive temperament.

And at this particular juncture, somewhat ticklish for a boy of

eight or nine, it did not fail him.

He lifted the cane and pushed the swinging door wide open. Then he

walked through it—into the Other Wing.

The green baize door swung to behind him; he was even sufficiently

master of himself to turn and close it with a steady hand, because he

did not care to hear the series of muffled thuds its lessening swings

would cause. But he realised clearly his position, knew he was doing a

tremendous thing.

Holding the cane between fingers very tightly clenched, he advanced

bravely along the corridor that stretched before him. And all fear

left him from that moment, replaced, it seemed, by a mild and

exquisite surprise. His footsteps made no sound, he walked on air;

instead of darkness, or the twilight he expected, a diffused and

gentle light that seemed like the silver on the lawn when a half-moon

sails a cloudless sky, lay everywhere. He knew his way, moreover, knew

exactly where he was and whither he was going. The corridor was as

familiar to him as the floor of his own bedroom; he recognised the

shape and length of it; it agreed exactly with the map he had

constructed long ago. Though he had never, to the best of his

knowledge, entered it before, he knew with intimacy its every detail.