“We have got her into the kitchen, professor,” she announced.  “She is a child—­a mere baby, and so pretty!  She has opened her eyes and spoken.”

“Give her some soup and wine—­hot,” said the professor, without stirring.

“But won’t you come?” she asked.

The professor hesitated; he hated attending in cases of illness, though he was a properly qualified doctor and in an emergency would lay his prejudice aside.

“Or shall I run across for the good Dr. Smit?” Koosje asked.  “He would come in a minute, only it is such a night!”

At that moment a fiercer gust than before rattled at the casements, and the professor laid aside his scruples.

He followed his housekeeper down the chilly, marble-flagged passage into the kitchen, where he never went for months together—­a cosey enough, pleasant place, with a deep valance hanging from the mantel-shelf, with many great copper pans, bright and shining as new gold, and furniture all scrubbed to the whiteness of snow.

In an arm-chair before the opened stove sat the rescued girl—­a slight, golden-haired thing, with wistful blue eyes and a frightened air.  Every moment she caught her breath in a half-hysterical sob, while violent shivers shook her from head to foot.

The professor went and looked at her over his spectacles, as if she had been some curious specimen of his favourite study; but at the same time he kept at a respectful distance from her.

“Give her some soup and wine,” he said, at length, putting his hands under the tails of his long dressing-gown of flowered cashmere.  “Some soup and wine—­hot; and put her to bed.”

“Is she then to remain for the night?” Koosje asked, a little surprised.

“Oh, don’t send me away!” the golden-haired girl broke out, in a voice that was positively a wail, and clasping a pair of pretty, slender hands in piteous supplication.

“Where do you come from?” the old gentleman asked, much as if he expected she might suddenly jump up and bite him.

“From Beijerland, mynheer,” she answered, with a sob.

“So!  Koosje, she is remarkably well dressed, is she not?” the professor said, glancing at the costly lace head-gear, the heavy gold head-piece, which lay on the table together with the great gold spiral ornaments and filigree pendants—­a dazzling head of richness.  He looked, too, at the girl’s white hands, at the rich, crape-laden gown, at their delicate beauty, and shower of waving golden hair, which, released from the confinement of the cap and head-piece, floated in a rich mass of glittering beauty over the pillows which his servant had placed beneath her head.

The professor was old; the professor was wholly given up to his profession, which he jokingly called his sweetheart; and, though he cut half of his acquaintances in the street through inattention and the shortness of his sight, he had eyes in his head, and upon occasions could use them.  He therefore repeated the question.