How long she sat there she did not know when again she opened her tired lids.
A figure stood near her. For a moment she confused dream and reality and smiled at him; then sat up, rigid, breathless, as the figure stirred and came forward.
She remembered attempting to rise, remembered nothing else very distinctly—not even his first words, though his voice was gentle and pleasant, just as it was in dreamland.
"Do you mind my speaking to you?" he was asking now.
"No," she said faintly.
He raised his head and looked out across the feverish city, passing one thin hand across his eyes. Then, with a slight movement of his shoulders, he seated himself on the ground at her feet.
"We have been neighbours so long," he said, "that I thought perhaps I might dare to speak to you to-night. My name is Landon—James Landon. I think I know your last name."
"O'Connor—Ellie O'Connor—Eleanor, I mean," she added, unafraid. A curious peace seemed to possess her at the sound of his voice. There was a stillness in it that reassured.
The silence between them was ringed with the distant roar of the city. He looked around him at the shadowy forms flung across bench and lawn; his absent glance swept the surrounding walls of masonry and iron, all a-glitter with tiny, lighted windows. Overhead a tarnished moon looked down into the vast trap where five million souls lay caught, gasping for air—he among the others—and this young girl beside him—trapped, helpless, foredoomed. The city had got them all! But he sat up the straighter, giving the same slightly-impatient shake to his shoulders.