Fritzing had found no one in the
parlour but Tussie clasping an immense biscuit-tin in his arms, with a
face so tragic that Fritzing thought something terrible must have
happened. Tussie had returned joyfully, laden with biscuits and
sardines, to find the girl standing straight and speechless by the
table, her face rigid, her eyes ablaze. She had not so much as glanced
at the biscuits; she had not said a single word; her look rested on
him a moment as though she did not see him and then she went into the
next room and upstairs to bed. He knew she went upstairs to bed for in
Creeper Cottage you could hear everything.
Fritzing coming in a few minutes later without the cook he had hoped
to find, was glad enough of Tussie's sardines and biscuits--they were
ginger biscuits--and while he ate them, abstractedly and together,
Tussie looked on and wondered in spite of his wretchedness what the
combination could possibly taste like. Then, after a late breakfast
on the Wednesday morning, Priscilla sent for Fritzing and told him
what Robin had done. The burdened man, so full already of anxieties
and worries, was shattered by the blow.
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