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

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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 informed you that she was

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!"




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