For an hour after this Robin's heart thumped joyfully; he was so happy that he forgot to steal; but at the end of that time hunger compelled him to purloin a silk pocket handkerchief from a fat old gentleman who was waiting to cross at the Bank. On this spoil he managed to live for that day and part of the next; and so, stealing a little, begging a little, working a little, in short, existing "on his wits," as he termed it, a fortnight and even three weeks, went by. During all this time he had never heard a single word about Helen. Night after night he went back to the attic where last they had been together, but he and she were both strangers in that part, and the people about could tell him nothing. He became uneasy, frightened; his buoyant spirits were giving way; he was a very little fellow to be quite thrown on his own resources in London, and he began seriously to grieve for the woman whom he believed to be his mother. One day a crowd of people were pushing and jostling to get into the court at the Old Bailey. Robin, very fond of mingling in crowds, ran quickly to join them, and when they filed into the building and filled that portion of it allotted to the public, he pushed and struggled with his agile little body until he found himself in a very prominent position. The scene before him was novel, he could not understand it. Near him stood a good-natured-looking woman, of whom he asked some eager questions. Several people who had committed a daring city burglary were about to be tried and punished, she told him. "Wot's a burglary?" asked the young thief, looking up innocently. "Why, bless us and save us! breakin' into 'ouses, lad, and makin' off with other folks' belongings. This case about to be tried was one of shop-lifting, and they do say the parties carried orf, besides gems innumerable, more 'n a hundred diamond rings. My man, wot's in the same business, told me h'all about it." Robin suddenly grew pale and silent. A hundred diamond rings! What was that tale Helen had told him the last night they were together? How very flush of money Helen had been that night! What a prime supper she had treated him to, and how loving she had been! But surely, surely she had told him something about diamonds, had even shown him a diamond ring that flashed and sparkled in his hand. Suddenly, with these rapidly recurring memories, the boy felt himself growing intensely anxious, intensely old, intensely wise. He had a kind of presentiment of what was coming, and hardly started when the next moment Helen herself was led into the prisoners' dock.