been robbed.

The child must be cold. Nicholas fetched his fur-lined cloak and
wrapped it about her.

There was something else he ought to do. The idea came to him while
drawing the cloak around her shoulders, very gently, not to disturb
her--something he wanted to do, if only he could think what it was.
The girl's lips were parted. She appeared to be speaking to him,
asking him to do this thing--or telling him not to do it. Nicholas
could not be sure which. Half a dozen times he turned away, and half
a dozen times stole back to where she sat sleeping with that
delightfully impertinent expression on her face, her lips parted. But
what she wanted, or what it was he wanted, Nicholas could not think.

Perhaps Christina would know. Perhaps Christina would know who she
was and how she got there. Nicholas climbed the stairs, swearing at
them for creaking.

Christina's door was open. No one was in the room; the bed had not
been slept upon. Nicholas descended the creaking stairs.

The girl was still asleep. Could it be Christina herself? Nicholas
examined the delicious features one by one. Never before, so far as
he could recollect, had he seen the girl; yet around her
neck--Nicholas had not noticed it before--lay Christina's locket,
rising and falling as she breathed. Nicholas knew it well; the one
thing belonging to her mother Christina had insisted on keeping. The
one thing about which she had ever defied him. She would never have
parted with that locket. It must be Christina herself. But what had