He meant to leave me to resolve the question for myself, it appeared. All day I waited and hungered, and not a sound of his footstep approaching did I hear. At length, when it was dark, quite desperate I took my candle, and, softly opening the trap, listened a moment, and descended. The cellar was empty; only the board and stools, and nothing else. I went swiftly scanning it, holding the light overhead. I tried the door at the end; it was fast locked. Unless he had gone out that way, there was no accounting for his disappearance. All at once I heard the thin mutter of voices--his and another’s, I was sure. Seeking to localise them, I came upon the low hole in the wall through which he had dragged the breakfast tray. I stooped, and hearing, I thought, the whisper clearer, sunk to my knees and looked through. Here was a passage, I found to my surprise, wide enough for a man to creep by; and, beyond, it seemed, a faintly lighted room. As I bent, I heard the chairs of the talkers drag, as if the two were rising, and, fearful of discovery, fled on tiptoe to my room once more, and, noiselessly closing the trap, stood panting and rigid by it. To what dark mystery was I being made the innocent and unconscious accessory? I felt suddenly bewildered and terrified. The light in my hand swayed and leaped, evoking gusty phantoms on the wall. A wind seemed to boom in my brain. I was really light-headed with hunger, I think. Presently, from sheer giddiness, I threw myself on my bed once more, and fell into a sort of waking stupor. In the midst, after how long I know not, a voice reached me. He was summoning me, if I needed it, to supper. If I needed it! What cruelty! He would not give my pride a chance. Half in fear, half fury, I turned my face to the wall, and did not answer. He wasted no time on me. I heard him withdraw in a moment, whistling. I had hoped he would think me escaped; would venture in, perhaps, panic-struck, to encounter the full torrent of my indignation. But he showed no concern whatever. He felt secure of his wretched little trapped bird, I supposed. And he was justified--was justified. Then I cried as I had never cried before. He might have had some patience, some consideration. At last, quite famished and exhausted, I fell asleep. I awoke, in full day, to find him standing over and regarding me. I felt weak, and too utterly subdued to resent his presence as it deserved. There was no pity in his eyes even then. I closed my own, feeling my throat swell. “I thought you might be hungry,” he said. “Are you?” At that, for all my efforts, the tears came. “Don’t you know?” I said. “But I suppose you think to starve me into submission.” “Submission to what?” said he. “You were offered food, and refused it. But I have brought you some bread.” He held out to me a dry crust. I turned from it in anger. “O, very well!” said he, and was returning it to his pocket.