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?”

“Didn’t she bring it?”

“Bring it, ma’am?”

“I gave it to her last night to change.  She was to bring it round this morning.  Didn’t she?”

Fritzing stared aghast.  Then he disappeared into the kitchen.  In a moment he was back again.  “She has not been here,” he said, in a voice packed once more with torment.

“Perhaps she has forgotten.”

“Ma’am, how came you—­”

“Now you’re going to scold me.”

“No, no—­but how is it possible that you should have trusted—­”

“Fritzi, you are going to scold me, and I’m so tired.  What else has been taken?  You said all your money—­”

He snatched up his hat.  “Nothing else, ma’am, nothing else.  I will go and seek the girl.”  And he clapped it down over his eyes as he always did in moments of great mental stress.

“What a fuss,” thought Priscilla wearily.  Aloud she said, “The girl here to-day will tell you where she lives.  Of course she has forgotten, or not been able to change it yet.”  And she left him, and went out to get into her own half of the house.

Yes, Fritzi really was a trial.  Why such a fuss and such big words about five pounds?  If it were lost and the girl afraid to come and say so, it didn’t matter much; anyhow nothing like so much as having one’s peace upset.  How foolish to be so agitated and talk of having been robbed of everything.  Fritzing’s mind, she feared, that large, enlightened mind on whose breadth and serenity she had gazed admiringly ever since she could remember gazing at all, was shrinking to dimensions that would presently exactly match the dimensions of Creeper Cottage.  She went upstairs disheartened and tired, and dropping down full length on her sofa desired Annalise to wash her face.

“Your Grand Ducal Highness has been weeping,” said Annalise, whisking the sponge in and out of corners with a skill surprising in one who had only practised the process during the last ten days.