"Why, neither we did! How extraordinary! We were so tired out that we just fell asleep in our chairs. You wake up Abel while I go and see where Lydia is."
"Do you hear Nalla calling?" Cæsar asked. "The poor fellow must think we're all dead. We never left him so late without attention before."
"Indeed, I do hear him," responded Nadine, a bewildered look on her face. "It is certainly very strange. I cannot understand it at all."
She had been moving about while she was speaking, putting things to rights with deft feminine skill, when suddenly she stopped, the color left her face, her eyes started from their sockets, she staggered as though she would fall, but steadied herself against the table as she shrieked:
"Cæsar! Cæsar! We have been robbed!"
"Robbed!" Cæsar echoed, darting forward to her side. "What do you mean?"
"Why, our money, it is all gone!" wailed Nadine. "You know I put it all back into the bag after we had counted it, and was going to hide it in my bed when Lydia fell asleep beside me, and a few minutes after I went to sleep too. I must have left it upon the table, and some wicked thief has crept in and stolen it. Oh dear! oh dear! what shall we do? All our money stolen!" and throwing herself down upon the table she sobbed as though her heart would break.
Cæsar, although he was appalled himself at this cruel misfortune, did his best to comfort her, and he and Abel almost turned the interior of the van upside down in a vain endeavor to find the missing bag.
"I'm afraid it has been stolen," he confessed at last. "There's not a trace of it. Come, Nadine, let us be brave. We may get it all back again. Do you hunt up Lydia, while I go and find one of the gendarmes and tell him what has happened to us."
In the extremity of her grief at the loss of the money, Nadine had for the time forgotten her little sister, but the moment Cæsar reminded her of Lydia she sprang to her feet, dashed away her tears with her hands, and choking back her sobs, ran out into the square, crying: