The first time they passed, one was saying to the other, “I never heard of anything so infamous.”

This ought not to have made Fritzing, a person of stainless life and noble principles, start, but it did.  He started; and he listened anxiously for more.

“Yes,” said the other, who had a newspaper under his arm, “they deserve about as bad as they’ll—­”

He was out of ear-shot; but Fritzing mechanically finished the sentence himself.  Who had been infamous?  And what were they going to get?  It was at this point that he laid hold of the handrail to steady himself till the two men should pass again.

“You can tell, of course, what steps our Government will take,” was the next snatch.

“I shall be curious to see the attitude of the foreign papers,” was the next.

“Anything more wanton I never heard of,” was the next.

“Of all the harmless, innocent creatures—­” was the next.

And the last snatch of all—­for though they went on walking Fritzing heard no more after it—­was the brief and singular expression “Devils.”

Devils? What were they talking about?  Devils?  Was that, then, how the public stigmatized blameless persons in search of peace?  Devils?  What, himself and—­no, never Priscilla.  She was clearly the harmless innocent creature, and he must be the other thing.  But why plural?  He could only suppose that he and Annalise together formed a sulphurous plural.  He clung very hard to the rail.  Who could have dreamed it would get so quickly into the papers?  Who could have dreamed the news of it would call forth such blazing words?  They would be confronted at Dover by horrified authorities.  His Princess was going to be put in a most impossible position.  What had he done?  Heavens and earth, what had he done?

He clung to the rail, staring miserably over the side into the oily water.  Some of the passengers lingered to watch him, at first because they thought he was going to be seasick with so little provocation that it amounted to genius, and afterwards because they were sure he must want to commit suicide.  When they found that time passed and he did neither, he became unpopular, and they went away and left him altogether and contemptuously alone.

“Fritzi, are you worried about anything?” asked Priscilla, coming to where he still stood staring, although they had got to Dover.

Worried!  When all Europe was going to be about their ears?  When he was in the eyes of the world a criminal—­an aider, abettor, lurer-away of youth and impulsiveness?  He loved the Princess so much that he cared nothing for his own risks, but what about hers?  In an agony of haste he rushed to his ideals and principles for justification and comfort, tumbling them over, searching feverishly among them.  They had forsaken him.  They were so much lifeless rubbish.  Nowhere in his mind could he find a rag of either comfort or justification with which to stop up his ears against the words of the two Englishmen and his eyes against the dreadful sight he felt sure awaited them on the quay at Dover—­the sight of incensed authorities ready to pounce on him and drag him away for ever from his Princess.