"Well, Betteredge," he said, "how does the
atmosphere of mystery and suspicion in which
we are all living now agree with you? Do you
remember that morning when I first came here
with the Moonstone? I wish to God we had
thrown it into the quicksand!"

After breaking out in that way, he abstained
from speaking again until he had composed
himself. We walked silently, side by side, for
a minute or two, and then, he asked me what
had become of Sergeant Cuff. It was impossible
to put Mr. Franklin off with the excuse of the
Sergeant being in my room, composing his mind.
I told him exactly what had happened, mentioning
particularly what my lady's maid and the
housemaid had said about Rosanna Spearman.

Mr. Franklin's clear head saw the turn the
Sergeant's suspicions had taken, in the twinkling
of an eye.

"Didn't you tell me this morning," he said,
"that one of the tradespeople declared he had
met Rosanna yesterday, on the foot-way to
Frizinghall, when we supposed her to be ill in
her room?"

"Yes, sir."

"If my aunt's maid and the other woman
have spoken the truth, you may depend upon it
the tradesman did meet her. The girl's attack
of illness was a blind to deceive us. She had
some guilty reason for going to the town
secretly. The paint-stained dress is a dress of
hers; and the fire heard crackling in her room
at four in the morning was a fire lit to destroy
it. Rosanna Spearman has stolen the Diamond.
I'll go in directly, and tell my aunt the turn
things have taken."

"Not just yet, if you please, sir," said a
melancholy voice behind us.

We both turned about, and found ourselves
face to face with Sergeant Cuff.

"Why not just yet?" asked Mr. Franklin.

"Because, sir, if you tell her ladyship, her
ladyship will tell Miss Verinder."

"Suppose she does. What then?" Mr.
Franklin said those words with a sudden heat
and vehemence, as if the Sergeant had mortally
offended him.

"Do you think it's wise, sir," said Sergeant
Cuff, quietly, "to put such a question as that
to me—at such a time as this?"

There was a moment's silence between them:
Mr. Franklin walked close up to the Sergeant.
The two looked each other straight in the face.
Mr. Franklin spoke first; dropping his voice as
suddenly as he had raised it.

"I suppose you know, Mr. Cuff," he said,
"that you are treading on delicate ground?"

"It isn't the first lime, by a good many
hundreds, that I find myself treading on delicate
ground," answered the other just as immovable
as ever.

"I am to understand that you forbid me to
tell my aunt what has happened?"

"You are to understand, if you please, sir,
that I throw up the case, if you tell Lady Verinder,
or tell anybody, what has happened, untii
I give you leave."

That settled it. Mr. Franklin had no choice
but to submit. He turned away in anger—and
left us.

I had stood there listening to them, all in a
tremble; not knowing whom to suspect, or
what to think next. In the midst of my confusion,
two things, however, were plain to me. First,
that my young lady was, in some unaccountable
manner, at the bottom of the sharp speeches
that had passed between them. Second, that
they thoroughly understood each other, without
having previously exchanged a word of
explanation on either side.

"Mr. Betteredge," said the Sergeant, "you
have done a very foolish thing in my absence.
You have done a little detective business on
your own account. For the future, perhaps
you will be so obliging as to do your detective
business along with me."

He took me by the arm, and walked me away
with him along the road by which he had come.
I dare say I had deserved his reproof—but I
was not going to help him to set traps for
Rosanna Spearman, for all that. Thief or no
thief, legal or not legal, I don't care—I pitied
her.

"What do you want of me?" I asked,
shaking him off, and stopping short.

"Only a little information about the country
round here," said the Sergeant.

I couldn't well object to improve Sergeant
Cuff in his geography.

"Is there any path, in that direction, leading
from the sea-beach to this house?" asked
the Sergeant. He pointed, as he spoke,
to the fir-plantation which led to the Shivering
Sand.

"Yes," I said; "there is a path."

"Show it to me."

Side by side, in the grey of the summer evening,
Sergeant Cuff and I set forth for the Shivering
Sand.

OTHER GENII OF THE CAVE.

We have all heard the story of a sexton who
was run away with by goblins; who beheld
strange scenes of joy and sorrow, of revelry and
mourning, of beauty and of hideousness, in the
caverns ne was whisked to by his mysterious
guides. That sexton's experience is mine. In
suddenness of transition, in depth of contrast,
and in the sternness of the moral enforced, the
pictures shown me by my genii are as those
portrayed by his. My predecessor's view
changed by the mere appearance and disappearance
of columns of smoke. The cavern remained
the same; while happy domestic life, touching
domestic sorrow, peaceful declining years,
and the glories of nature, with every leaf and
blade animate with life, were revealed in
instantaneous succession. In my case, a few weeks
intervened between my last cavern-trip* and

* See Genii of the Cave, page 60.