"Is it possible something has happened?" thought Annalise joyfully, her eyes gleaming as she willingly flew back to Priscilla's door,—anything, anything, she thought, sooner than the life she was leading.
Priscilla heard Fritzing's order and sat up at once, surprised at such an unprecedented indifference to her comfort. Her heart began to beat faster; a swift fear that Kunitz was at her heels seized her; she jumped up and ran out.
Fritzing was standing at the foot of the stairs.
"Come down, ma'am," he said; "I must speak to you at once."
"What's the matter?" asked Priscilla, getting down the steep little stairs as quickly as was possible without tumbling.
"Hateful English tongue," thought Annalise, to whom the habit the Princess and Fritzing had got into of talking English together was a constant annoyance and disappointment.
Fritzing preceded Priscilla into her parlour, and when she was in he shut the door behind her. Then he leaned his hands on the table to steady himself and confronted her with a twitching face. Priscilla looked at him appalled. Was the Grand Duke round the corner? Lingering, perhaps, among the very tombs just outside her window? "What is it?" she asked faintly.
"Ma'am, the five pounds has disappeared for ever."
"Really Fritzi, you are too absurd about that wretched five pounds," cried Priscilla, blazing into anger.
"But it was all we had."