e collar safely away behind the Chinese
scroll.

As she passed through the hall, she stopped for a moment at the head of
the stairs. The painted lady smiled at her, the painted lady who was
loved by the old man in the shadowed room.

No, Hilda was not a thief. Yet as she stood there, in the cold dawn of
that Thanksgiving morning, she had it in her mind to steal from the
painted lady things more precious than a pearl collar or an ermine
cloak or the diamonds in a crown!

CHAPTER XII

WHEN THE MORNING STARS SANG

Jean was having her breakfast in bed. Emily had slipped downstairs to
drink an early cup of coffee with the Doctor and to warn him, "Don't
tell her to-day."

"Why not?"

"It will spoil her feast. Derry Drake is coming to dinner."

"The robber--"

"Do you really feel that way about it?"

"I don't know how I feel."

He rose and went to the window. "It's a rotten morning."

"It is Thanksgiving."

"I haven't much to be thankful for," moodily. "I am, you tell me,
about to lose my daughter. I am, also, it would seem, to part company
with my best nurse."

"Hilda?"

"Yes. I wanted her to take charge of things for me in France. She
elects to stay here."

"But why?"

"She's a--woman."

"You don't mean that. And I must say that I am rather glad that she is
not going."

It was out at last! She had a feeling as if she had taken a cold
plunge and had survived it!

"Glad? What do you mean, Emily?"

"Every time I waked in the night, I thought of Jean and of how she
would feel if Hilda went with you. Do you realize that if she goes,
there are things that the world will say?"

His face was stern. "You are very brave to tell me that, Emily."

"It had to be said, and last night I shirked it."

"But Hilda is a very good nurse."

"Do you think of her only as a--good nurse?"

He turned that over in his mind. "No. In a sense she's rather
attractive. She satisfies a certain side of me--."

"The best side?"

He avoided an answer to that. "When she is away I miss her."

And now Miss Emily, shaking a little, but not showing it, made him face
the situation squarely.

"Have you ever thought that, missing her, you might want to marry her?"

"I have thought of it. Why not, Emily?"

"Have you thought that it would make her your Jean's--mother--?"

His startled look met her steadfast one. His mind flew back to Hilda
as she had bent down to him the night before, that he might