Priscilla walked faster, staring in
astonishment. He made strange gestures, his face was pale, his hair
rubbed up into a kind of infuriated mop.
"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.
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