THE MOONSTONE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," &c. &c.

CHAPTER XVI.

WE found my lady with no light in the room
but the reading-lamp. The shade was screwed
down so as to overshadow her face. Instead
of looking up at us in her usual straightforward
way, she sat close at the table, and kept her
eyes fixed obstinately on an open book.

"Officer," she said, "is it important to the
inquiry you are conducting, to know beforehand
if any person now in this house wishes to leave
it?"

"Most important, my lady."

"I have to tell you, then, that Miss
Verinder proposes going to stay with her aunt,
Mrs. Ablewhite, of Frizinghall. She has
arranged to leave us the first thing to-morrow
morning."

Sergeant Cuff looked at me. I made a step
forward to speak to my mistress— and, feeling
my heart fail me (if I must own it), took a step
back again, and said nothing.

"May I ask your ladyship when Miss
Verinder first thought of going to her aunt's?"
inquired the Sergeant.

"About an hour since," answered my
mistress.

Sergeant Cuff looked at me once more. They
say old people's hearts are not very easily moved.
My heart couldn't have thumped much harder
than it did now, if I had been five-and-twenty
again!

"I have no claim, my lady," says the
Sergeant, "to control Miss Verinder's actions.
All I can ask you to do is to put off her
departure, if possible, till later in the day. I must
go to Frizinghall myself to-morrow morning—
and I shall be back by two o'clock, if not before.
If Miss Verinder can be kept here till that time,
I should wish to say two words to her—
unexpectedly— before she goes."

My lady directed me to give the coachman
her orders, that the carriage was not to come
for Miss Rachel until two o'clock. "Have you
more to say?" she asked of the Sergeant, when
this had been done.

"Only one thing, your ladyship. If Miss
Verinder is surprised at this change in the
arrangements, please not to mention Me as being
the cause of putting off her journey."

My mistress lifted her head suddenly from
her book as if she was going to say something
— checked herself by a great effort— and, looking
back again at the open page, dismissed us with
a sign of her hand.

"That's a wonderful woman," said Sergeant
Cuff, when we were out in the hall again.
"But for her self-control, the mystery that
puzzles you, Mr. Betteredge, would have been
at an end to-night."

At those words, the truth rushed at last into
my stupid old head. For the moment, I
suppose I must have gone clean out of my senses.
I seized the Sergeant by the collar of his coat,
and pinned him against the wall.

"Damn you!" I cried out, "there's
something wrong about Miss Rachel— and you have
been hiding it from me all this time!"

Sergeant Cuff looked up at me— flat against
the wall— without stirring a hand, or moving a
muscle of his melancholy face.

"Ah," he said, "you've guessed it at last."

My hand dropped from his collar, and my
head sunk on my breast. Please to remember,
as some excuse for my breaking out as I did,
that I had served the family for fifty years.
Miss Rachel had climbed upon my knees, and
pulled my whiskers, many and many a time when
she was a child. Miss Rachel, with all her
faults, had been, to my mind, the dearest and
prettiest and best young mistress that ever an
old servant waited on, and loved. I begged
Sergeant Cuff's pardon, but I am afraid I did
it with watery eyes, and not in a very becoming
way.

"Don't distress yourself, Mr. Betteredge,"
says the Sergeant, with more kindness than
I had any right to expect from him. "ln
my line of life, if we were quick at taking
offence, we shouldn't be worth salt to our
porridge. If it's any comfort to you, collar me
again. You don't in the least know how to do
it; but I'll overlook your awkwardness in
consideration of your feelings."

He curled up at the corners of his lips, and,
in his own dreary way, seemed to think he had
delivered himself of a very good joke.

I led him into my own little sitting-room, and
closed the door.

"Tell me the truth, Sergeant," I said.