"Why, what in the world—" began the amazed Priscilla, as soon as she was near enough.
"Ma'am, I've been robbed," shouted Fritzing; and all Symford might have heard if it had happened to be listening.
"Robbed?" repeated Priscilla. "What of?"
"Of all my money, ma'am. Of all I had—of all we had—to live on."
"Nonsense, Fritzi," said Priscilla; but she did turn a little paler. "Don't let us stand out here," she added; and she got him in and shut the street door.
He would have left it open and would have shouted his woes through it as through a trumpet down the street, oblivious of all things under heaven but his misfortune. He tore open the drawer of the writing-table. "In this drawer—in the pocket-book you see in this drawer—in this now empty pocket-book, did I leave it. It was there yesterday. It was there last night. Now it is gone. Miscreants from without have visited us. Or perhaps, viler still, miscreants from within. A miscreant, I do believe, capable of anything—Annalise—"
"Fritzi, I took a five-pound note out of that last night, if that's what you miss."
"You, ma'am?"
"To pay the girl who worked here her wages. You weren't here. I couldn't find anything smaller."
"Gott sei Dank! Gott sei Dank!" cried Fritzing, going back to German in his joy. "Oh ma'am, if you had told me earlier you would have spared me great anguish. Have you the change?"