Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that long, long miserable night. Upon searching her pocket on the following morning she found her money was all gone--not a sixpence remained.
"Grandfather," she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked about a mile on their road in silence, "Do you think they are honest people at the house yonder? I ask because I lost some money last night--out of my bedroom, I am sure. Unless it was taken by some one in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh heartily if I could but know it--"
"Who would take money in jest?" returned the old man in a hurried manner. "Those who take money, take it to keep. Don't talk of jest."
"Then it was stolen out of my room, dear," said the child, whose last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.
"But is there no more, Nell," said the old man--"no more anywhere? Was it all taken--was there nothing left?"
"Nothing," replied the child.
"We must get more," said the old man, "we must earn it, Nell--hoard it up, scrape it together, come by it somehow. Never mind this loss. Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it. Don't ask how--we may regain it, and a great deal more, but tell nobody, or trouble may come of it. And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert asleep!" He added in a compassionate tone, very different from the secret, cunning way in which he had spoken until now. "Poor Nell, poor little Nell!"
The child hung down her head and wept. It was not the lightest part of her sorrow that this was done for her.
"Let me persuade you, dear grandfather," she said earnestly, "Oh, do let me persuade you to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but the fortune we pursue together. Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we turned our backs upon that unhappy house for the last time," continued Nell. "Think what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have felt, and why was this blessed change?"
He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no more just then, for he was busy. After a time he kissed her cheek, and walked on, looking as if he were painfully trying to collect his thoughts. Once she saw tears in his eyes. When they had gone on thus for some time, he took her hand in his, as he was accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or animation of his late manner; and by degrees settled down into his usual quiet way, and suffered her to lead him where she would.