In the middle of the night Loristan opened the door of the back sitting-room, because he knew he must at least go upstairs and throw himself upon his bed even if he could not sleep.

He started back as the door opened.  The Rat was sitting huddled on the floor near it with his back against the wall.  He had a piece of paper in his hand and his twisted face was a weird thing to see.

“Why are you here?” Loristan asked.

“I’ve been here three hours, sir.  I knew you’d have to come out sometime and I thought you’d let me speak to you.  Will you—­will you?”

“Come into the room,” said Loristan.  “I will listen to anything you want to say.  What have you been drawing on that paper?” as The Rat got up in the wonderful way he had taught himself.  The paper was covered with lines which showed it to be another of his plans.

“Please look at it,” he begged.  “I daren’t go out lest you might want to send me somewhere.  I daren’t sit doing nothing.  I began remembering and thinking things out.  I put down all the streets and squares he might have walked through on his way home.  I’ve not missed one.  If you’ll let me start out and walk through every one of them and talk to the policemen on the beat and look at the houses—­and think out things and work at them—­I’ll not miss an inch—­I’ll not miss a brick or a flagstone—­I’ll—­” His voice had a hard sound but it shook, and he himself shook.

Loristan touched his arm gently.

“You are a good comrade,” he said.  “It is well for us that you are here.  You have thought of a good thing.”

“May I go now?” said The Rat.

“This moment, if you are ready,” was the answer.  The Rat swung himself to the door.

Loristan said to him a thing which was like the sudden lighting of a great light in the very center of his being.

“You are one of us.  Now that I know you are doing this I may even sleep.  You are one of us.”  And it was because he was following this plan that The Rat had turned into Brandon Terrace and heard the Samavian song ringing out from the locked basement of Number 10.

“Yes, he is one of us,” Loristan said, when he told this part of the story to Marco as they sat by the fire.  “I had not been sure before.  I wanted to be very sure.  Last night I saw into the depths of him and knew.  He may be trusted.”

From that day The Rat held a new place.  Lazarus himself, strangely enough, did not resent his holding it.  The boy was allowed to be near Loristan as he had never dared to hope to be near.  It was not merely that he was allowed to serve him in many ways, but he was taken into the intimacy which had before enclosed only the three.  Loristan talked to him as he talked to Marco, drawing him within the circle which held so much that was comprehended without speech.  The Rat knew that he was being trained and observed and he realized it with exaltation.