To Sydney it was all as if it were part of a dream. He had not dreamed--he did not know since when. This was like one of the dreams he used to have when he was a boy; a delightful dream. The sense of comfort which filled the room, the charmingly laid breakfast table, glorious with pretty china and shining plate; the charming woman who, with the most natural air, was treating him as one who not only had an assured footing, but who was both near and dear. Whether in this matter it was he who dreamed or she, he could not make sure. He wondered if he had been ill. He had such a strange feeling that he very easily might have been; he might have been ill for quite a long time; all sorts of things might have happened, and he might have forgotten all about them. It was the more possible since he could remember nothing; all he could remember was that he had awakened and found the man at his bedside with a tray on which was a tumbler. Before that, beyond that, his mind was a hazy blank. But there seemed nothing hazy about his hostess, if she was his hostess; he supposed she was. If she was not his hostess, then who was she? She was ministering to his creature comforts in a manner which made the dream seem still more delightful, and such a very real one, too. Through the haze which served him as a mind there seemed to gleam something which troubled him. The breakfast was excellent, the coffee, the food, everything. Was that not, in part, because at some remote period he had gone without breakfast, without--anything? He was frantically hungry. There was a fragrance about the hot rolls which recalled something. Was there not a time when he had wanted a hot roll very badly, or something like it? The effort of recollection caused him to stop eating, a fact on which the lady commented. "Of what are you thinking? You looked as if your thoughts were miles away. Won't you have a little more bacon?" He had a little more. There was an exquisite flavour about that bacon which made it seem fit food for a god. He ate and ate, while she sat by, putting more food upon his plate as soon as it was empty or replacing one plate with another. At last he ceased. How much he had eaten he had no notion; he could eat no more. "Now," she said, "you must have a cigar and a liqueur."