"If, in half an hour from this, you still insist
on my leaving the house, I will accept your
ladyship's dismissal, but not your ladyship's
money."

It was spoken very respectfully, but very
firmly at the same time—and it had its effect on
my mistress as well as on me. She suffered
Mr. Franklin to lead her back into the room.
As the door closed on the two, the Sergeant,
looking about among the women-servants in
his observant way, noticed that, while all the
rest were merely frightened, Penelope was in
tears. "When your father has changed his
wet clothes," he said to her, "come and speak
to us, in your father's room."

Before the half-hour was out, I had got my
dry clothes on, and had lent Sergeant Cuff such
change of dress as he required. Penelope came
in to us to hear what the Sergeant wanted with
her. I don't think I ever felt what a good
dutiful daughter I had, so strongly as I felt it
at that moment. I took her and sat her on my
knee—and I prayed God bless her. She hid her
head on my bosom, and put her arms round my
neck—and we waited a little while in silence.
The poor dead girl must have been at the bottom
of it, I think, with my daughter and with me.
The Sergeant went to the window, and stood
there looking out. I thought it right to thank
him for considering us both in this way—and
I did.

People in high life have all the luxuries to
themselves—among others, the luxury of
indulging their feelings. People in low life have
no such privilege. Necessity, which spares our
betters, has no pity on us. We learn to put
our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on
with our duties as patiently as may be. I don't
complain of this—I only notice it. Penelope and
I were ready for the Sergeant, as soon as the
Sergeant was ready on his side. Asked if she
knew what had led her fellow-servant to destroy
herself, my daughter answered (as you will foresee)
that it was for love of Mr. Franklin Blake.
Asked next, if she had mentioned this notion of
hers to any other person, Penelope answered,
"I have not mentioned it, for Rosanna's sake."
I felt it necessary to add a word to this. I
said, "And for Mr. Franklin's sake, my dear,
as well. If Rosanna has died for love of him,
it is not with his knowledge or by his fault.
Let him leave the house to-day, if he does leave
it, without the useless pain of knowing the
truth." Sergeant Cuff said, "Quite right,"
and fell silent again; comparing Penelope's
notion (as it seemed to me) with some other
notion of his own which he kept to himself.

At the end of the half-hour, my mistress's
bell rang.

On my way to answer it, I met Mr. Franklin
coming out of his aunt's sitting-room. He
mentioned that her ladyship was ready to see
Sergeant Cuff—in my presence as before—and
he added that he himself wanted to say two
words to the Sergeant first. On our way back
to my room, he stopped, and looked at the railway
time-table in the hall.

"Are you really going to leave us, sir?" I
asked. "Miss Rachel will surely come right
again, if you only give her time."

"She will come right again," answered Mr.
Franklin, "when she hears that I have gone
away, and that she will see me no more."

I thought he spoke in resentment of my
young lady's treatment of him. But it was not
so. My mistress had noticed, from the time
when the police first came into the house, that
the bare mention of him was enough to set Miss
Rachel's temper in a flame. He had been too
fond of his cousin to like to confess this to
himself, until the truth had been forced on him,
when she drove off to her aunt's. His eyes
once opened in that cruel way which you
know of, Mr. Franklin had taken his resolution
—the one resolution which a man of any spirit
could take—to leave the house.

What he had to say to the Sergeant was
spoken in my presence. He described her ladyship
as willing to acknowledge that she had
spoken over hastily. And he asked if Sergeant
Cuff would consent—in that case—to accept
his fee, and to leave the matter of the Diamond
where the matter stood now. The Sergeant
answered, "No, sir. My fee is paid me for
doing my duty. I decline to take it, until my
duty is done."

"I don't understand you," says Mr. Franklin.

"I'll explain myself, sir," says the Sergeant.
"When I came here, I undertook to throw the
necessary light on the matter of the missing
Diamond. I am now ready, and waiting, to redeem,
my pledge. When I have stated the case to
Lady Verinder as the case now stands, and
when I have told her plainly what course of
action to take for the recovery of the Moonstone,
the responsibility will be off my shoulders.
Let her ladyship decide, after that, whether she
does, or does not, allow me to go on. I shall
then have done what I undertook to do—and
I'll take my fee."

In those words, Sergeant Cuff reminded us
that, even in the Detective Police, a man may
have a reputation to lose.

The view he took was so plainly the right
one, that there was no more to be said. As I
rose to conduct him to my lady's room, he asked
if Mr. Franklin wished to be present. Mr.
Franklin answered, "Not unless Lady Verinder
desires it." He added, in a whisper to me, as
I was following the Sergeant out, "I know
what that man is going to say about Rachel;
and I am too fond of her to hear it, and keep
my temper. Leave me by myself."

I left him, miserable enough, leaning on the
sill of my window, with his face hidden in his
hands—and Penelope peeping through the door,
longing to comfort him. In Mr. Franklin's
place, I should have called her in. When you
are ill used by one woman, there is great comfort
in telling it to another—because, nine times out
of ten, the other always takes your side.
Perhaps, when my back was turned, he did call her
in? In that case, it is only doing my daughter
justice to declare that she would stick at