of being really hungry for some time.
He was so used to eating scantily from necessity, and to passing long
hours without food during his journeys, that he had proved to himself
that fasting is not, after all, such a desperate ordeal as most people
imagine. If you begin by expecting to feel famished and by counting
the hours between your meals, you will begin to be ravenous. But he
knew better.

The time passed slowly; but he had known it would pass slowly, and he
had made up his mind not to watch it nor ask himself questions about
it. He was not a restless boy, but, like his father, could stand or
sit or lie still. Now and then he could hear distant rumblings of
carts and vans passing in the street. There was a certain degree of
companionship in these also. He kept his place near the cat and his
hand where he could occasionally touch her. He could lift his eyes now
and then to the place where the dim glimmer of something like light
showed itself.

Perhaps the stillness, perhaps the darkness, perhaps the purring of the
mother cat, probably all three, caused his thoughts to begin to travel
through his mind slowly and more slowly. At last they ceased and he
fell asleep. The mother cat purred for some time, and then fell asleep
herself.

XV

A SOUND IN A DREAM

Marco slept peacefully for several hours. There was nothing to awaken
him during that time. But at the end of it, his sleep was penetrated
by a definite sound. He had dreamed of hearing a voice at a distance,
and, as he tried in his dream to hear what it said, a brief metallic
ringing sound awakened him outright. It was over by the time he was
fully conscious, and at once he realized that the voice of his dream
had been a real one, and was speaking still. It was the Lovely
Person's voice, and she was speaking rapidly, as if she were in the
greatest haste. She was speaking through the door.

"You will have to search for it," was all he heard. "I have not a
moment!" And, as he listened to her hurriedly departing feet, there
came to him with their hastening echoes the words, "You are too good
for the cellar. I like you!"

He sprang to the door and tried it, but it was still locked. The feet
ran up the cellar steps and through the upper hall, and the front door
closed with a bang. The two people had gone away, as they had
threatened. The voice had been excited as well as hurried. Something
had happened to frighten them, and they had l