“What o’clock is it?” she asked.
“It is late. Go to sleep again; you will have no more nightmares.”
“And you—are you not going to bed?”
“I am not sleepy.”
“Are you going to sit up all night—What is the matter? Are you reading?”
“No, I am thinking.”
“What we were talking about?”
“Of that, and of you.”
“That is right. Think over all the truths I told you and so you will be unconsciously preparing your mind.—Hark! I hear a bell. Is it a fire?”
They listened. They could hear the barking of the dogs, which in the suburbs of Madrid, where every house has a wide and vacant let attached, meet in dozens to unearth kitchen refuse and rummage in the gutters; they could hear the distant creak and jangle of the latest tram-cars, and the faint, steady, metallic ticking of Leon’s watch in his waistcoat pocket—nothing else—much less a bell.